


When We Were Young

by sulasass



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drama & Romance, Eventual Smut, Exes, F/M, Flashbacks, Humor, LIKE A LOT OF ANGST, Rekindled Romance, sometimes, yes ygritte is in the tags but it is more a past type of thing and is a tiny part of the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:18:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulasass/pseuds/sulasass
Summary: 'My God, this reminds me of when we were young'Daenerys and Jon haven't seen each other in seven years since they had a messy break up.Now she's a police detective and he's a private detective.What happens when a murder case unexpectedly brings them back together?





	1. The Night We Met

**Author's Note:**

> 'I had all and then most of you  
> Some and now none of you  
> Take me back to the night we met'  
> -Lord Huron, 'The Night We Met' 
> 
> HELLO! I promised myself not to start writing this until I was completely done with my other fic, but there's only one chapter left and this was itching to come out. 
> 
> Prepare for the typical angsty detective full of swearing and a whole lot of flashbacks. 
> 
> I'd recommend you keep this on hand for what all the abbreviations mean, bc let me tell you I learnt a LOT of new things https://www.anglotopia.net/british-entertainment/brit-tv/brit-telly-101-understanding-british-police-ranks-mystery-shows/

Daenerys Targaryen was in the middle of drying her shirt to remove her unfortunate coffee stain with the bathroom hand-dryer when one of her detective sergeants, DS Nymeria Sand, came bursting through the toilet doors.

“Lannister wants to see you.” Nymeria seemed rather excited to deliver this information as her words came out breathily. Daenerys glanced up at her in momentary disbelief and then back down at her still stained shirt with an irritated click of her tongue.

“ _Shit_ , well, do you know what it’s about?” Nymeria shrugged dramatically.

“Like I have a fucking clue. Mormont told me and we all know he would have loved to share the news with you if he could and -,”

“Okay, _okay_ , shut up,” She brushed at her shirt one more time and checked it in the mirror to make sure it wasn’t completely noticeable. She frowned. Trust her to make a tit of herself on the day Lannister wanted to speak to her personally. Most days she would only get to speak to him through her own superior, DCI Mormont.

Nymeria was smirking after Daenerys told her to shut up and Daenerys clocked it.

“Sand, you need to stop making suggestions about DCI Mormont’s feelings towards me, because there are none. Zero. Nothing there. Got it?” She pointed her finger at Nymeria, but still felt the uncomfortable dampness of her stain against her from where she had tried to wash it out, so hurriedly grabbed her black blazer off the side of the sink to put it on. 

“I wasn’t even suggesting anything.” Nymeria replied, playing it off nonchalantly. “Anyway, you know Lannister’s still waiting for you.” 

Daenerys sighed and took the lead out of the toilets to head to DSU Lannister’s office. When she was on duty, she always walked around like she meant business. She did mean business, but it was also a good way to avoid pointless conversation – nobody wanted to interrupt someone who looked like they were very important with something that wasn’t of equal importance. With this walk she managed to get to Lannister’s office fully avoiding any unnecessary communication.

She knocked on the half open door and saw DSU Lannister through the glass on the phone, but he gave her eye contact and motioned her in.

It occurred to her in that very moment that this was possibly a telling off. Normally any telling off would be from her own superior, Mormont, but if it was something really, _really_ bad then maybe it would be from Lannister. She gave a nervous exhale as she entered the office, hovering near the handsome Jaime Lannister’s desk as she waited for him to get off the phone.

“No, that doesn’t work at all. I’ll ring you back about this.” He put the phone down abruptly, giving Daenerys a small shock, but she kept an alert expression to hide that she was currently running through any little thing she had done in the past few weeks that might have been wrong. “Please, DI Targaryen, take a seat.”

She cautiously took a seat, tucking her short hair behind her ears to give her something to do with her hands. She was watching his every movement to try and figure out whether this was a positive, neutral or negative meeting. She hoped that it was neutral, as she liked to think that he would have enough respect for her to not hide his anger or disappointment with her.

Well, she had a lot of respect for him and she just hoped he did for her as well. For a DSU he was actually very young, only in his early thirties, and she was extremely young at the age of soon-to-be twenty-eight to be a Detective Inspector, but here they both were. She hoped to get to his level one day.

“Take a look at this file,” He said, his voice brimming with his usual confidence, as he slid one of the brown files from his side of the table over to hers. She switched her gaze from him to the file and after a deep breath; she picked it up and opened it.

She felt like she could have used a warning before opening that file, but she didn’t let it show in her face that it at all made her want to throw up the muffin and coffee she had this morning.

Photos of a crime scene were laid out there for her to see. No body, but a lot of blood. Bloody fingerprints on a door frame, blood poured on to a bedroom carpet to stain it for years to come and –

She brought the file closer to her face, so she couldn’t be mistaken.

“Are those…” She didn’t finish her question, as there was no point at all. She knew what it was and it sent shivers down every single inch of her body.

“They look familiar to this, right?” He produced another two files, but these were bulkier; she knew exactly what those files were, so she shook her head.

“You don’t need to show me, I… I remember them.”

It was her first big case after she moved to the Major Crime Team and it was the case that got her the promotion from a Detective Sergeant to a Detective Inspector, but it was left unsolved. Of course they all still said that they worked on finding the murderer, but there was no trace, nothing new to look for.

At first there was one murder and then there was another and then… nothing. This was two years ago and hopes were diminishing for ever getting it solved.

Nothing else had quite emotionally rattled Daenerys like this and although a tiny part of her wanted to never hear about it again, the bigger part of her was ready to let this small trace of hope for solving it take over her whole life again.

“It’s got to be the same…” She said, with furrowed eyebrows as she stared hard at the photo depicting flowers set down in a specific way on the floor, soaking in the blood that was present. “Where’s the body?”

“That’s the only difference between this and the 2016 case,” DSU Lannister started to say, placing the bulkier files back down as Daenerys refused to see them. “There was no body.”

Daenerys sat back in her chair, at a slight loss. The murderer had seemed to love displaying the dead bodies laced with flowers, as if it was a photo shoot. This seemed to be against everything that they had on this person.

Another thought crossed her mind.

“Where did this happen? Why am I only finding out about it now?” If this happened in their district, then she would have been called to go to the crime scene.

“It was last night in Manchester.” That place always caused Daenerys to get unwelcome flashbacks, but she was too focused on the current situation to give it a second thought right now. “They noticed the similarities with that case as well and sent it over to this unit. We need someone who had an involvement with the case and I know you’re the best person to aid them.”

Daenerys had her heart in her throat during his speech. She might be able to finally solve it. She might be able to finally escape the nightmares that still woke her up to this very day.

“So I’m going to Manchester? How long has that been approved for? Who is going to look after my team?” Daenerys knew she was asking a lot of questions, but this was a whole lot of information for someone to be taking in at half-past eight in the morning.

“Yes, for as long as it takes. DCI Mormont will be doing his position and yours during your absence from the team. You’ll be reporting to DCI Tarth there. Some advice: do what she says; she can be a brutal bitch.” He gave a little knowing smile.

“However long it takes?” Daenerys echoed, only taking in that part of what he said.

“Well, as long as it doesn’t take too long.” Lannister gave a shrug of his shoulders. “We need to work on this quickly. The victim’s family have already hired a private detective to help them, as they think she’s still alive.”

Daenerys groaned. Whenever private detectives got involved it always made their jobs a whole lot worse.

“Why do they always do that?”

“Yeah, some twat called Snow or something.”

Daenerys’ world came crashing down right in that moment.

Manchester. Snow.

It couldn’t be, could it?

No fucking way.

She was already getting one painful memory from her past being handed to her with this case; she didn’t need another much more painful memory to be given to her.

She couldn’t stop the unwelcome flashbacks now as she was left reeling from that name drop.

* * *

 

_September 4 th, 2008_

It all started with another guy’s tongue down her throat.

It was the first week of university in Manchester where it was kind of an orientation week, but mainly an excuse to drink every single night of the week; Dany was very excitedly grasping at that opportunity, just like every other straight out of school fresher was doing. The opportunity that presented itself at this specific ‘glitter’ (poorly themed) party was a guy who was a few years above her and definitely interested in her.

After a few instances of eyeing each other up, she stupidly left her group of five-day old friends and went in a corner to make out with him when they had only exchanged a few words to each other. This was all fine of course.

He then insisted that they go outside and even though Dany’s favourite song had just started playing, she went outside with him, because… well, because he was _extremely_ good looking.

“Crazy night, right?” He said once they were out of the club and on the street along with everyone who was having a cig break.

Without the neon lights streaming on his face, Dany was left to wonder exactly how old he was.

 “I guess,” She hadn’t thought so at all. She rubbed at her arms, the chilly night temperature getting to her short, green glittery dress wearing self. “So… did you need to have a smoke or fresh air or…?”

This man didn’t seem to need to be outside at all and she dreaded what reason he could possibly have to come out here… Oh crap, she hoped he didn’t actually want to tal-

“Nah, just thought we could talk for a bit.”

 _Great_.

“No, thanks,” She said before seeing his expression and realising how rude that sounded. She gave a forced laugh to cover that up. “It’s a bit cold, I’d rather be indoors.”

She dramatically gave a shudder of her shoulders to illustrate her point. He began to smirk and walked towards her. Dany immediately started to walk back into the wall, as if trying to keep a reasonable distance between them.

“We could always go back to mine.” Dany forced out another laugh at that suggestion.

“Or we could always go back inside!” She was trying to keep it light in the hopes that she wouldn’t have to actually reject him and could just give him several indirect hints that she wasn’t interested.

“Come on, D – Wait, what was your name again?” She wanted to roll her eyes, but kept smiling sweetly.

“Dany.”

“Ah, short for Danielle?”

“No.” There was an awkward silence, as he clearly thought she was going to tell him what it was actually short for. She wasn’t.

“Well, I’m Daario if I didn’t say already.”

She was pretty sure he had mumbled his name earlier, just before they started kissing, but she hadn’t paid much attention to it.

“Come on, Dany, we’ve both been to better nights than that.” He now put his hand out to press against the wall by her head. Dany had decided that despite his attractiveness, she wasn’t interested in staying in his company.

“Yes, well, I’m sure you’ve gone to a lot more nights than I have… How old are you anyway?” She was still trying to keep the tone very light, even though she was getting more direct.  

“I’m twenty-four.”

Dany couldn’t hide her widening eyes and shocked gasp that escaped her then.

“ _Twenty-four?”_ She asked, her voice a high-pitched squeal in that moment. “You know this is a night designed for freshmen, usually eighteen year-olds, right? Even if you were allowed to get into a night like this, I really don’t understand why you would want to?”

Well, she was most certainly not keeping her tone light now.

Daario snorted, a cruel smirk growing on his face.

“I come here because freshman girls are looking for a man, not a boy, and are easy, as you’ve just proven.”

Dany’s face set in a scowl then, as she reached her hand back and pushed it full-throttle to slap him across his face with a satisfying sound. There was loud whooping and cheering from the on looking drunk people.

“You bitch!”

“You creepy, desperate _and_ practically middle-aged man!”

She stormed off then, forgetting about joining her friends back at the club, instead focusing on getting a greasy kebab and getting into bed – her own bed.

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later and with the remains of a kebab in one hand and her shoes in the other, Dany was walking through her new university campus, wondering in which freaking direction her accommodation halls were situated in. Maybe she was still too angry or drunk to be able to remember clearly? After standing in the same spot for a good five minutes and looking around helplessly, she realised she might have to do the unthinkable as a British person and ask someone for directions.

Although that would prove a difficult task, as it was currently 1:30 in the morning. She kept walking until she came across someone – that someone being a guy with slicked back black hair wearing a big black leather jacket. It looked like he was putting something on one of the walls and Dany figured that was something you had to do when you were sober, so he might prove to be helpful.

“Excuse me,” She started, running towards him, as if he could vanish at any second. “I’m looking for my halls. Wright Robinson?”

The guy didn’t even turn to see his damsel in distress and continued taping whatever it was that he was putting up, but he did use one of his hands to point somewhere behind Dany.

“There’s a student centre over there. They’ve got wifi.” His voice was extremely gruff and as opposed to Dany’s southern accent, his was completely northern, so she needed an extra second to process what he said.

“Is that a ‘no’ then?” She said in a strained voice, trying to stay as polite as she could.

“It’s more a ‘why don’t you do what everyone else seems to do nowadays’ kind of answer.”

How had she managed to come across two of the rudest men she had ever encountered in her life on the same damn night? She didn’t know how, but it was definitely enough to piss her off. Again.

“It’s almost two in the morning and I’ve risked my life approaching you, as you might be a murderer and that still might be the case, as it’s quite alarming that you haven’t given me eye contact yet, so if you do not know where I need to go then you could just say instead of being smart and wasting my time.”

After Dany’s little monologue, the guy did turn around. She was taken aback slightly by how strikingly dark and beautiful his features were. He wasn’t smiling, just staring her down. His eyes moved down from her hands that were still holding her shoes and kebab, down to her now shoeless feet. Her makeup probably looked wild and long hair undoubtedly now would be sprawled across the place. It definitely wasn’t her best look.

“What if I am a murderer?” He asked, his mouth barely moving as he spoke.

“Well, I’d say you should still just get it over with and kill me instead of being smart and… wasting my time.” It was a lame joke, but if she wasn’t mistaken his mouth gave a miniscule twitch as if he was about to smile at it. She smiled, as if doing it for the both of them.

“Watch out for glass.”

“Huh? I mean, what do you mean?” She asked with a huff. She had thought she was making progress with him, but there he went again, talking in his roundabout way of communication.  

“You’re not wearing any shoes. There’s broken glass on the streets. Watch out.” He spoke very slowly as if she was completely stupid. She wasn’t, just slightly inebriated.

“These are your halls?” It seemed like he hadn’t heard her at all in her monologue about him not wasting her time.

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know where they are?” He arched one of his eyebrows and Dany sighed.

“It’s my first week, it’s dark and I’m by myself right now. Surely enough reasons for my confusion.” He turned back to the wall, picking up a stack of paper and his roll of tape. She was about to give up on him, but then he turned back around.  

“And drunk.” He offered, as if she had forgotten that reason.

“Tipsy.” She corrected with an indignant huff.

“Okay, go that way and then turn left.” She smiled in surprise then as he finally helped her out instead of being an asshole, an attractive and slightly entertaining asshole, but an asshole nevertheless.

“Well, thank you for your eventual assistance.” She tucked her shoes under one arm as she leaned forward to snatch up one of his papers.

“What are you doing?” He asked, sounding more tired with her high-energy than anything else.

“I was just curious.” She struggled to read what it said; as she balanced all the things she was holding. It was a poster for a night of live music performances at a nearby student bar that she had already heard of. “Ah… Are you in one of these performances?”

“I’m in a band.” He looked like he didn’t really want to be telling her.

“Let me guess – you play really moody, depressing music?” His mouth gave one of those twitches again and she, once again, smiled for the both of them.

“I’d say come and see for yourself, but not sure I want to see you again.”

“Oh, I have no intention of _ever_ seeing you again.” She agreed with a hard nod, but with a smile as well.

“Good.” The guy didn’t smile back and Dany felt that he might think she was being serious.

“ _But_ … if I did end up going to the event, I guess it would be good to know the name of your band and what your name is.”

“Uhm… band is called Winterfell. Not sure why you need my name.”

“No, I guess I don’t really need your name. Anyway, I’m going to go now -,”

“Jon.” She blinked in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting him to jump in with any more niceties after his common decency of showing her the direction she needed to head in.

“Well, see you never, Jon.”

And even though those words left her, she walked away hoping that she did come across this Jon again.

“Yeah, watch out for the glass -,”

“Dany!” She called out, not looking back in that exact moment.

She had a sneaking suspicion that he wanted to see the girl in the green sparkly dress holding up her kebab and heels again as well, so she turned her head to sneak a peek behind her shoulder to confirm he was looking at her and fortunately for her, he was.

And so that short lived moment detailed the night Dany and Jon met.

* * *

 

_Present Day_

Daenerys left Lannister’s office with her thoughts infiltrated by Jon Snow. It should be a bigger concern of hers right now that she would be facing her previous case that had emotionally affected her more than any other case in her life or the fact that she would be moving to Manchester, her old university town, today for the next few weeks, or more, but no, she was just thinking about how fate was a bastard.

She ignored her surroundings completely as she got to her desk and logged in quickly to her desktop. She was about to start a google search of all things when DCI Mormont interrupted her.

“DSI Lannister has spoken to you already then?” Daenerys looked up from her desktop and moved her hands from her keyboard as if Mormont would know what she was trying to type.

“Yes, you know what it was about I assume?” She asked and Mormont gave a swift nod, still standing over her desk.

He was quite a lot older than her. She had spent all her years since joining the force under his position and she had grown to hold a lot of respect for him – it seemed like he had the same respect for her as well.

“Yes, are you leaving today then?”

“Yes, now actually. I’m just packing up my things and getting the first train there, as it’s quite urgent and all.” She wasn’t sure if she was making much sense with her words, but she was just trying to hurry the conversation on to its’ ending point, because she needed this to be over, she needed to know what she was getting herself into.

“It won’t be the same without you here, Daenerys.” There was a sad smile on his face as he uttered those words.

They were always trained to say each other’s last names in the office; it was just the common practice. It always threw Daenerys off whenever he specifically used her first name, because she would only ever call him Jorah if they ever spent downtime together and that was infrequent.

“Do you need me to go through anything about the team before I go?” She asked, deciding to ignore his comment.

“No, we’ll be fine – you just concentrate on getting there.” Daenerys once again nodded and gave a smile. Mormont patted her shoulder before walking away. “Take care.”

She continued giving her fake smile until she was sure Mormont wouldn’t turn around and then she grew serious once more, quickly doing the google search she was about to do before: Jon Snow, Detective.

If it was him who was the PI hired by this victim’s family then he should come up fairly quickly.

She went to the images tab and sure enough there was a picture of him right there, staring up at her.

A picture of her ex.

“ _Oh_ , fuck.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAHH I hope you all enjoyed it, bc I sure as hell think i'm gonna enjoy writing this one. 
> 
> Please please please (can't stress this enough) leave me a review if you like it, bc that is what will encourage me on! Kudos is absolutely lovely as well <3
> 
> oh check out my pinterest for this one and see her green sparkly dress in all its' glory https://www.pinterest.co.uk/litanyfever/when-we-were-young/
> 
> Rachel xoxo


	2. Wherever You Will Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daenerys travels up to Manchester. 
> 
> Flashback: Dany watches Jon Snow's band perform.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'And maybe, I'll find out  
> A way to make it back someday'  
> -Wherever you will go, The Calling
> 
> Thank you for the lovely praise on this fic so far!

“Hi, I’m sorry – is now an okay time?” Daenerys hadn’t even looked at the name on her screen, as she was busy putting her suitcase away on the train, but hearing Missandei’s voice got her smiling.

“Yes, please save me from the horribly bad news I’ve had today.” She said with a sigh, as she collapsed into her less-than-comfortable train seat.

“Good, good… Dany! I have something to tell you!”

“What is it?” The excitement she heard in her voice eased her. At least she wasn’t about to receive any more bad news.

“I’m pregnant! I found out last night and I just want to tell everyone.” Daenerys audibly gasped and let out an excited giggle. Missandei joined in with the expressed excitement by shrieking too.

“Oh my gosh, Missy – this is crazy! Congratulations!” Daenerys could barely get the words out as she sat in her excitement.

“Thank you, we need to celebrate! Miles is back in a week -,”

“Ooh, we permanently call him Miles now, do we?” Daenerys teased.

“It feels too weird to call him Grey when that’s my last name now too.”

“I can understand how that could get confusing.” Daenerys said in a deadpan voice, but clearly continuing to joke.

Missandei and Miles had gotten married at Christmas time last year. Daenerys had been the Maid of Honour and it had been beautiful to watch these teenage sweethearts finally tie the knot.

It seemed like they had taken their time to settle down and now it was all happening at once – the marriage, the pregnancy and… Daenerys knew exactly how her mother or how any other person above the age of forty would react to it. They would give her an exasperated look and go, ‘ _And why aren’t you getting married?_ ’

“But, hey, you said you had bad news… Is everything okay?”

“Well,” Daenerys realized she didn’t want to steal any of the attention from her best friend’s great and lovely moment of completely deserved excitement, so she changed her tone and pretended it was all great. “It’s fine, I just have to leave London on a pretty tough case, so I can’t celebrate with you right now, but I am celebrating with you in spirit. And I swear if I’m not solely responsible for your baby shower, I will be revoking best friend status.”

“Of course you will be.” Missandei said with a giggle. “Are you sure you’re good?”

“Apart from the fact I’m going to have to go, as my signal is going to die on this train, I’m fine. Don’t worry, you go and ring everyone else on your contact list – I’m assuming I’m the first after immediate family to find out?”

“You would be correct with your assumption. I better get back to work anyway. I’ll message you in a bit with the start of all my annoying baby texts.”

“That would be perfect.”

Daenerys hung up and tapped her phone against her chin. Perhaps she should have shared what was happening with Jon with Missandei. She would understand better than most people the total spiral this was currently sending her into. She was pretty positive that Missandei knew more about Jon’s life than she did anyway, because Grey must still keep in touch with Jon.

She knew he had been invited to their wedding reception, but he, thankfully, couldn’t make it. Well, ‘couldn’t make it’ was the term that was thrown about, but he probably didn’t want to see her as much as she _couldn’t_ see him.

Daenerys sighed and put the phone back down on the table. She decided in that moment that she would only tell Missandei about Jon after she saw him and she did _plan_ on seeing him… Or really the fates were aligned for her to see him again.

Missandei was kind of the reason she ended up ever getting involved with Jon anyway and so she would have to tell her eventually.

 

* * *

 

_September 15 th, 2008_

 

In their first year of university, Dany and Missandei were roommates and if they hadn’t been roommates then this would probably never have happened, because nobody else would have been as darned perceptive as Missandei was. Considering they had only known each other for two weeks, Missandei was  _extremely_  perceptive.

“Are you wearing your pyjamas already?” Dany flicked her head up from the incredibly interesting magazine article on nail polish shades for winter that she was engrossed in to give Missandei a quizzical look. She was wearing a Disney princess jumper and some sweatpants.

“No, this is just my, you know, casual look.”

“Ah, right,” Missandei said, turning back to do the homework she seemed to just be pretending to do. “I was just confused, because I thought you had plans tonight.”

Dany simply laughed and turned back to her magazine, but then she properly processed what Missandei had said and she wondered if she had memory issues.

“ _Wait_ , do I have plans tonight?” Missandei gave her a smile along with a raised eyebrow. Dany wondered how long she would have to wait to get an answer, because Missandei looked like she was enjoying the suspense too much to reply. Eventually though she pointed over at Dany’s desk that was on the opposite side of the room.

“Oh, I thought the poster that was so neatly positioned on your desk was something that you intended on going to and I noticed the date was today, so I naturally assumed you would be going.” Missandei continued to innocently smile at Dany.

Dany sucked on the inside of her mouth for a good long moment before replying.

“What? A poster? I don’t remember a poster.” Missandei allowed herself a giggle at that.

“Like I said, it is  _very_  neatly positioned on your desk.” Missandei even got up at this moment to fetch the poster and hold it up for Dany to see.

“Everything is neatly positioned on my desk; I possibly have OCD that hasn’t been diagnosed yet.”

“Okay, so you’re not going to it then.” Missandei began moving back to her desk and Dany didn’t know whether this was a ploy to get her to talk about it more or not, but it worked. Dany threw down her magazine and jumped up to take the poster out of Missandei’s hands.

“Well, let me refresh my memory on it.”

She looked hard at the poster like she needed any refreshing on it. Despite the tipsy haze she was in that night, she remembered that boy who screamed having a bad boy attitude with that leather jacket and slicked back hair.

She liked boys like that, because then it made it harder for her to get them or if that turned out to be easy then she could make it harder for them to get  _her_. Plus they never wanted a relationship and that suited her just fine – she vowed to  _never_  fall in love again, because fun was fun and love was… horrible.

“Yeah, I can’t really go watch some student bands perform crappy music by myself. God, that sounds depressing.”

She didn’t really know whether she should go to the event or not. She was still in two minds at this point, because wouldn’t it look desperate to watch him perform in some band that she didn’t remember the name of and shouldn’t she just leave it up to fate anyway? Okay, leaving it up to fate sounded more desperate and as if she was relying on romance, but -

Missandei replied then though and she kind of had to make a decision.

“I’m not doing anything, I’ll come with you.” Missandei had a mischievous smile on her face as she uttered the words, like she knew what was going on even though Dany hadn’t told her a single thing about Jon, the mysterious guy in the leather jacket.

“Okay… Okay, sure, that’ll be cool. It’s something to do, I suppose.” Dany was acting overly casual by shrugging her shoulders and throwing up a hand dismissively to show that she was fine with what was going on. 

They went to the dingy student bar about an hour later when a rapper was on the tiny stage at the back of the bar.

“Oh, that guy is amazing!” Missandei had said loudly in Dany’s ear, as if she found this to be the most comfortable and normal environment. 

Dany was not in her comfort zone. The air smelt of smoke and it was so busy in there that she couldn’t even see Jon anywhere - she was ready to admit that was completely the reason she had come here.

“Yeah,” Dany noted, trying to locate where the bar was, as she most definitely required a drink tonight.

“So… where’s your guy?” Dany whipped her head around to look at Missandei, who all of a sudden wasn’t paying her any attention and was looking solely at the guy on stage right now, and huffed indignantly.

“Was it that obvious that I was being desperate and not supporting the local arts?” Missandei shrugged, but Dany needed confirmation. A round of applause started up and Missandei was clapping away. 

“Thank you, thank you. I’m Grey Worm; you can check me out on myspace.” This was the guy on the stage and there was no getting Missandei’s attention now. He was moving off the stage, as it was clearly the end of his performance.

“Ooh, I should go and say he did a really good job, shouldn’t I? Or maybe I shouldn’t… What do you think?” She had just been looking at this Grey Worm guy with basically heart-shaped eyes until the last second where she turned around to look at Dany.

“You’re going to leave me?” Dany asked, helplessly looking around the room that was getting more crowded by the second. She felt rather betrayed. How could you become a fan of someone’s music in a matter of seconds? And so much of one that you started going all gooey-eyed on that person?

“Okay,” Dany said with a roll of her eyes, figuring she could later claim credit on this if she got Missandei with some rapper. “But I’m getting us drinks and timing you, okay?”

Missandei laughed and squeezed her friend’s hand for her niceness. Dany watched her slide through the crowd before deciding to follow what she had said and make her way to the bar.

“Next up we’ve got Winterfell performing a song or two.”

Dany’s ears perked up at the announcement on the stage and she turned her head in that direction, forgetting all about her drinks. She was sure that was what Jon had said was the name of their band.

She scanned the band members as they walked on to the stage. There were just three of them and so it wasn’t hard to spot Jon, especially as he was the most attractive guy there.

What was surprising was that he took centre stage with his bass guitar, as if he was about to sing.

She didn’t think he was going to turn out being the singer of the group. She knew then and there that this was going to turn into something very dangerous. He looked as hot as he did and was a singer?

She hoped he was bad at it.

“So, uhm… we’re Winterfell. We’re just going to do some covers tonight.” Jon’s announcement was greeted with some lukewarm clapping. Dany started clapping too, but she was a bit late to it and they had already started the opening notes to a song she couldn’t recognize right then and there.

And then he started singing.

_“So lately, been wondering, who will be there to take my place…”_

She knew that song basically as soon as he uttered the first few words – Wherever you will go. It was a song she was very familiar with, but out of his mouth it sounded so personal and appealing. He made every word he sang sound like it had a hidden depth to it.

She struggled to get through the crowd that seemed to be mainly there for socialising and drinking anyway. They definitely weren’t giving Jon the appreciation he currently deserved.

She squeezed her way between the backs of two guys and came out the other side, closer to the front and with a clear viewing of Jon. If she had been aware of her surroundings at all she would have noticed that nobody else was paying attention to the band like she was and that she was giving the heart-shaped eyes look that Missandei had been giving a few moments earlier.

_“If I could, then I would, I’ll go wherever you will go…”_

She stayed in that awed state for the duration of the song. When the last few notes of the song played and people started clapping in a much more enthusiastic way than before, she shut her mouth from its gaped position and tried to look like she hadn’t been staring at just Jon for those three minutes.

His eyes panned across the crowd and because she was the only one watching them intently, he spotted her and it seemed like he was going to give that blank stare that he had given her the week previously, but he started smiling – an almost smug smile. She shifted her gaze to a spot on the ceiling instead until the next song started up.

She hated how she could already feel a kind of wetness forming in her pants. Shit, was she really that easily attracted to people who wore leather jackets and could sing well?

She didn’t want to become an easy groupie, as she was at risk of clearly becoming, so before she could get lured in by another song, she went to find Missandei.

“Missy! Missy!” She called over the heads of people and tried to look at any corner to where she might be. How could her recognisable hair be so unrecognisable tonight?

She needed to get out of there before the song ended, because she was sure the announcer had said one or two songs. The song was nearing its close when she finally found Missandei with Grey Worm in the far corner of the bar.

“Dany!” Missandei exclaimed as Dany began to pull on her arm. Another round of applause started as the song seemed to end. “This is Grey – wasn’t he great earlier?”

“Yeah, you were fantastic.” Dany said, forcing a smile in the direction of Grey Worm, but it didn’t matter as he was paying all his attention to Missandei. She wondered if he actually went by the name of Grey? “Can we go? Like now?”

She spoke with urgency, but Missandei didn’t seem to catch on how urgent it was.

“Okay, uhm… Grey, would you possibly like my number?”

Dany tuned out of the conversation, glancing around to see that Jon and the rest of his band were leaving the stage and disappearing into the crowd. Turning back she could see Missandei and Grey exchanging numbers. She decided to give them thirty seconds before making her own way out of there.

She counted down with her foot and whispered the ten second countdown to get to the end.

“ _Three, two, one_ … Okay, Miss, I’m just going to go and I think you should at least get another drink with him.” She said with as much friendly enthusiasm for Missandei’s potential suitor as she could muster.

“Wait, are you sure? I can’t do that -,”

“Please. I kind of want to go back and sleep anyway, so you’ll be doing me a favour!” She wondered how convincing her enthusiasm was, but Missandei seemed to buy it. 

“Okay, well, if you’re sure?” She nodded and leaned in to give Missandei a hug.

She didn’t waste any more time getting out of there.

She was so hot and sweaty and just inexplicably flustered, so the cool air that hit her when she plunged out of the shitty bar was completely welcoming.

“What did you think?”

She jumped with a shriek at the male voice behind her. She swivelled around and found Jon in her personal space with a cigarette in his mouth that he was trying to light.

“ _Oh_ , of course you smoke.” She replied with a roll of her eyes, trying to not sound like he had terrified her.

“Thought you didn’t want to see me again?” He seemed overly confident with the way he spoke this time around and Dany knew it was probably because of the way she was looking at him play.

He was smirking at her now, as he blew out a cloud of smoke. She waved at it dramatically.

“My friend dragged me here.” She said, being careful not to smile or give any indication that she was happy to see him.

“You looked like you were having a good time.” She really did not enjoy how much he was smirking now. Last time he could barely muster a smile and now he couldn’t keep a straight face.

“It smelt like smoke, it was too busy, it was sweaty and gross… Of course I was having a fantastic time.” He let out a small laugh. Now he was laughing at her jokes too?

“What did you think of Winterfell then?” She figured he was trying to get a proper answer out of her, but she wasn’t willing to provide one.

“Well, you sang.”

“I did.” As he continued to smile and nod his head, she figured she should turn the tables to make him feel a little uncomfortable now.

“You sang like you know a lot about love, do you?” She posed the question with an innocent expression, but her smile grew wider when he looked flustered by her question.

“Uh… not really.” He shrugged.

“Ah, that’s why you only do covers and you don’t write your own songs, because you’re just _pretending_ to know what’s going on in a song.”

“You talk a lot.” She ignored his little input there and continued on.

“And you know why you don’t know a lot about love?” She asked, still smiling sweetly at him.

“I’m sure this will be good.”

“Because you smoke.” A low laugh escaped Jon and Dany gave him a smug smile.

“ _Wow_ , you really don’t like it, do you?”

“Nobody likes it.” She said simply and he looked like he was properly considering her thought process.

“So if I stopped I’d get to know about love?”

“Maybe. I mean you’d also have to work on your personality, but… it’d be a start.” She simply shrugged, enjoying getting to wind up this guy.

“Okay.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and stamped it out with his shoe. Daenerys let out an irritated sound.

“And now you’re just littering the planet.”

“Jesus…” He said, sounding completely exasperated with her. She glared at him for a moment longer before he continued to speak. “My friend, Sam, is having a house party on Saturday. Are you going?”

She tried to ignore the rush of excitement she felt by that question.

“You’re inviting a fresher to a party?”

“I’m not inviting you and I’m a fresher too.” It shouldn’t have made a difference, but she kind of enjoyed that they were in the same year.

“Then how have you made a band this fast?”

“I live here and so does Sam. We’ve been doing this for a few years.”

She took her time to speak again, anticipation building as she waited to either agree or ask another question.

“Okay, put the address in here and I’ll consider it.”

“ _Consider_?” He choked out another laugh.

“Should I put my number in here as well?”

“Only if you really want to.” She internally patted herself on the shoulder for how casual she came across. She looked away from him, as if to show she didn’t really care what he did, but the whole time she was hoping that he did put his number in.

He cleared his throat and she looked back to see that he was now holding out her phone for her. She reached out to take it from his hand and their hands rested on each other’s for longer than it should have done.

Her eyes sparked up to his and if a hand touching wasn’t enough for her to get flushed cheeks then the way he was staring at her was.

She cleared her own throat, pulled her hand away and left without another word.

She checked her phone to see if he added his number. 

And there it was labelled as ‘Jon Snow’.

* * *

 

_Present Day_

 

Walking out of Manchester’s train station was the most nostalgic experience Daenerys had ever experienced. She knew this was just the start of it as well. Every single street held a memory for her and so she would be transported back to that time – a time she had tried so hard to forget. 

She steadied herself and got into the first taxi, asking to go to the police station she was to be stationed at.

“You’re not from around here?” The taxi driver asked and Daenerys silently cursed the fact that he wanted to speak to her.

“I used to be,” She softly said, as she stared out the window to be repeatedly hit with unwelcome memories.

 

* * *

 

The ride to the station was thankfully quick and she managed to dodge most conversation starters with her driver. She pulled her suitcase along to the front desk in the station, eager to get started on the case where she could momentarily forget about everything that was in Manchester to remind her about her past life and past mistakes. 

“DI Targaryen, I’m supposed to be reporting to DCI-,”

“Yes!” The excitement in someone’s voice behind her got Daenerys’s attention.

“Yes?” Daenerys asked, after turning around to see a young man with brown hair and dark eyes.

“Oh, don’t worry, Becky, I’ll take her through. Been expecting her.”

“That’s Green to you,” The muffled voice of the lady at the desk came through as this other guy walked up to Daenerys.

“DS Waters or Gendry.” He held out a hand to her for her to shake. She tentatively put out her own hand and gave it a firm hold.

“Okay, DS Waters.” She announced, making it clear that she would not be referring to him as Gendry.

“Right, well,” He scratched his head, looking slightly dampened by Daenerys insisting on calling him by his last name. “This is my first case in homicide and I’m so excited to be working with you on the big case!” 

He actually looked genuinely excited. 

Daenerys widened her eyes and Gendry seemed to realise he was being weird, so he turned his expression to a grave one.

“Yeah, we’re really happy you’re here. Anyway, follow me.”

Daenerys followed Gendry through the office and he led her to a door marked DCI Tarth. She was a woman with harsh features – bleach blonde hair scraped back to bring more attention to her pale face and striking eyes. She definitely looked like she didn’t take bullshit.

“DI Targaryen here,” Gendry announced and DCI Tarth looked angry before anything had even begun.

“What are you doing here?” Daenerys looked from DS Waters back to DCI Tarth, shocked by the direct and harsh questioning.

“Hello,” Daenerys couldn’t help but state the obvious greeting that was missing from Tarth’s question. She only received a hard stare for her attempt. “Well, I was hoping to be on the case.”

“With your case.”

“Excuse me?” Daenerys, beyond puzzled by this line of questioning, suddenly realised she had her suitcase with her. “Oh… Yes, I don’t know where my flat is and I would rather get straight into the case.”

“Speak at the front office. We’ve sorted out your accommodation.” Tarth finally seemed to lapse in the permanent stress she was displaying. “Greyjoy, who is leading this with you, is still out on an interview and we’re waiting for lab tests to come back, so I’ll be giving the briefing in,” She looked at her watch for the briefest of seconds. “Well, whenever the fuck lab gets back to me. Let’s say two hours.”

If this was where Daenerys actually worked then she would be arguing her right to stay here, but she didn’t really want to argue with Tarth when she had just turned up and maybe there really wasn’t much she could assist with now.

“Just go and prepare yourself for the briefing, because we want to hear as much as possible from you. That Lannister twat has helped us out by sending you here."

Daenerys bit on her bottom lip, supressing a strange smile at DSU Lannister, a superior to Tarth as well as herself, being referred to as a twat.

“I wouldn’t allow it to _not_ be here.” Daenerys clarified, wanting to express her passion for this specific case, but she was starting to feel ushered out of the office by Tarth.

“Oh, and if that Jon bloody Snow sniffs you out as being on the case as well, then don’t say a single word to him, okay? Fucking private detectives, I swear they’re like paparazzi.”

Daenerys took a deep breath.

“Of course.”

 

* * *

  

Half an hour later Daenerys was stood outside what was supposed to be Jon’s office. 

It didn’t look like much – a small door stuck in between a Chinese takeaway and a free sex clinic with a cheaply made sign above it stating, ‘Detective Snow’. There was something about the whole thing that saddened her.

He should have been doing so much more with his life, because he was made for greatness. She was doing great things with her career and no bitterness sat within her anymore to say that she didn’t want him to be doing great as well.

Did she really want to be doing this?

She didn’t think she would ever be seeing him again, because she never thought their paths would cross. Now their paths were crossing and before they awkwardly bumped into each other it was best to do it on her own terms.

So no, she didn’t want to be doing this, but she needed to.

She opened the door in between the sex clinic and the Chinese takeaway and stepped into the less than sanitary looking hallway. There were a set of stairs for her to climb up and her nerves got heavier with every step she took. Only someone who hadn’t seen their ex-partner, with whom she had a break-up with, in seven years, would understand how the nervous anticipation ate at her internal organs until she was practically unable to stand. 

Finally she neared the top where another door was located, partly open. She took her final step towards and stared it down, knowing he should be right there behind the door.

Was she ready?

The inside of her head currently said, ‘ _Fuck, no. Fuck, no. Fuck, no._ ’

She told her head to shut up, took a breath, shook her hand so it stopped shaking, then knocked on the door and pushed it open in one easy motion.

All that sat before her was an empty desk that looked like it was supposed to be a makeshift reception for anyone who got as far as this door.

“Not expecting anyone!”

The voice came from another room that must have been Jon’s office. 

Despite the shock of it all, Daenerys couldn’t resist the private smile that crept on her face as she stood there, hearing Jon’s gruff, northern voice after all these years. It was like hearing one of her favourite songs after forgetting for years what it was called. It was like hearing her mother sing the lullaby she used to sing to her when she was a child, but now you’re a fully grown adult.

It was like hearing Jon, the love of her life, speak for the first time in six years.

And she couldn’t breathe for a second. She was eighteen years old again for a second hearing him sing for the first time and being so entranced by him that she couldn’t hide her delight. 

The sound of shoes coming towards the shut office door brought her out of her reverie and she tried to compose her face, so she didn’t look so  _fucking_  happy. Happy? Happy to see the man who broke her just as much as she broke him? Yes, she couldn’t be too happy about that.

“I said I wasn’t expecting anyone and so,” The door opened then and she saw him before he saw her. “if you’d -,” 

His voice trailed into nothingness and his legs didn’t look like they could work anymore.

Silence persisted as Daenerys saw the older version of the man she loved. She noted his fully bearded chin, his glasses, his jumper, his eyes, the pen that he was chewing on and everything else that made him what he was.  _Oh shit_ , she thought,  _he’s still just as cool as he used to be._

“Hello, Jon.” She croaked out. 

He pulled the pen from his mouth and looked as if he was about to say something totally profound.

“Oh, Jesus  _shitting_  Christ, fuck me.” 

Daenerys gave an awkward smile and nodded her head slowly as her brain rattled for something to say.

“I already have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THAT'S HOW YOU GREET YOUR EX
> 
> So as you can probably sense there are two stories being told at once here and they will continue to be completely interlinked. 
> 
> Please keep reviewing as it makes my heart light up 
> 
> Rachel xoxo


	3. Macarena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany and Jon have their first conversation in 6 years and there are new developments in Dany's case.

_September 20 th, 2008_

 

“Okay, wait… Are we on the right street?” Dany asked, as she circled around, looking for a clear street sign. Why was it so difficult to seemingly find any clear-to-read street sign in the UK?

“I don’t know; you’re the one who was supposed to know where we’re going.” Missandei, who was in tow with Grey, replied and Dany shrugged her shoulders.

“I know the final destination and that’s all that really matters.” Dany then finally caught a glimpse of the street sign and let out a victorious cheering sound. “See? I know where we’re going, I know what we’re doing and -,”

“What exactly are we doing?” Missandei spoke up again and Dany was starting to wish she wouldn’t keep giving her two cents in on the current situation. She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around to look at Missandei, meaning Grey and Missandei had to stop too.

“Going to a party.”

Missandei and Grey looked at each other with a smirk and raised eyebrows. Dany figured that meant Missandei and Grey must have been discussing her non-important, ‘crush’ situation and that annoyed her ever so slightly.

Her and Grey had literally met less than a week ago and somehow had managed to go on two dates, not including tonight, and seemed like they were practically in a relationship already.

It shouldn’t be that easy! And they almost definitely shouldn’t have secret glances already.

“Okay -,”

“No, it looks like you’ve both got an opinion on it, which is bizarre to me, so would you like to share?” Dany asked with incredibly raised eyebrows as she moved her hands to her hips.

“It just seems weird to go to a stranger’s party.”

“Not a stranger.”

Dany didn’t want to say that yes, it was a mere stranger, but she had a crush on him, so it didn’t really matter as much.

“And we had another chill party to go to.” Grey supplied.

They did have another party lined up, but it wasn’t like she had to force everyone to come here.

“We can still go to it. This is just a ‘stop and take a lot of the beer’ kind of party.” Dany felt a little bubble of sickness in her stomach, not due to anything she ate or drank so far that evening, but because even her own insistence on going to this party just to see this Jon Snow made her feel a little sick.

It just made her feel desperate. She did not like that feeling.

“Okay, okay, what’s the house number?” Dany felt relieved that she didn’t have to try and defend her illogical desire to go this party anymore.

She instead looked down at her phone, at the address Jon had put into her phone, and saw that it was a number 22. She glanced back up at the row of semi-detached houses and saw they were already at house 20.

“It should be next door.” Dany declared confidently, walking as fast as she could in her heels.

She should have definitely downplayed her outfit instead of wearing heels, a black vest top and a silver glittery miniskirt. Perhaps also it was far too late to dwell on that fact and so she continued strutting up the drive.

Jon had said that he and Sam were both from Manchester, so maybe this house looked so large and lovely because this was Sam’s family home. There was a fancy looking car (Dany knew nothing about the makes of cars) in the drive as well. His parents must have been away for the weekend, as that was the tradition of teenagers.

“It’s so quiet.”

Missandei’s whisper behind her deterred her power walk to the front door, because she realised that Missandei was absolutely correct. It was far too quiet for a house party to be taking place behind the door.

“Maybe we’re early?” Dany asked, chewing on her bottom lip. “Parties usually don’t get guests till like 11, right?”

“It’s midnight.” Grey stated, but he quickly added, “Maybe it’s a slow start.”

“I can hear music though.” Missandei said a bit cheerily.

If Missandei hadn’t said anything, then Dany was convinced she wouldn’t be able to hear the music herself. What kind of house party was this?

She shrugged, thinking they had come this far already and took the remaining steps to ring the doorbell. Missandei and Grey stood directly behind her.

“Usually you can just walk straight into house parties,” Grey said, proving that he definitely knew a lot more about parties than Dany – she knew nothing.

“There’s nothing wrong with being polite.”

However she went to open the door. It went flying open before she could even touch the handle though and what was revealed was a much older lady.

What. The. Fuck?

Dany gawped for a second and she was positive that everyone in her group was frozen as well.

“We must have the wrong place.” Dany spoke slowly, staring in confusion at the friendly enough looking blonde haired lady.

She was absolutely positive she had come to the right address, so it was just Jon who gave the wrong address, as maybe some sort of joke on her. That arrogant, littering, smoking bastar-

“You must be Sam’s friends!”

“ _Huh_?” Dany couldn’t come out with anything more intelligent than that. She had walked into some sort of trippy dream here.

“Mum!” A big, bumbling and dirty blond haired guy came out from a side passage with a party hat on and Dany realised this was Sam. She had noticed him onstage with Jon before she was completely swept away by Jon’s performance. He didn’t seem to pay Dany and the others much attention, just focusing on the fact that his Mum was greeting them.

“You’re in Winterfell!” Dany stated with not much necessity. Now Sam and his Mum were both looking at her.

“You don’t know -,” His Mum started, but Sam pulled on her hand.

“Mum, there’s been a drink spillage in the kitchen and I can’t find the -,”

“I hope you didn’t let anyone step in it and then go into the dining room.” She barely finished her sentence before disappearing down the hallway.

Sam sighed and quickly removed his party hat.

“My Mum’s business trip got cancelled so I tried cancelling tonight, but now she’s turned it into your typical child’s birthday party with alcohol.”

“Happy Birthday!” Dany turned her head to say ‘really?’ to Missandei who had just cheerily greeted Sam with this.

“Thanks… Sorry, if you heard from someone that this was a house party, it was supposed to be. Unless you want to stay for musical chairs, I guess you should go and save yourselves.”

“I really can’t tell if this is a joke or not.” She gave a bemused laugh. The song in the house ended and what started up was ‘Macarena’. Dany grimaced. “I suddenly completely believe you.”

Steps could be heard coming up from behind Sam and Dany felt now was a good time to exit swiftly before his Mum came back. What was revealed, however, was Jon, who looked incredibly annoyed in his own party hat, taking his time to join Sam at the door.

Dany felt her whole body relax and her grimace was replaced with the tiniest of smirks. Jon wasn’t smiling when he noticed her there, but he did look incredibly surprised. Given the recent revelations on what this party was, his surprise was founded.

“Dany.” He nodded, causing Sam to do a double take between the two of them.

“Jon.” Dany stated, very seriously returning his nod. A glimpse of Jon’s smile then was enough to convince Dany to do what she did next.

“Well, I don’t know about you two,” She turned to Missandei and Grey’s confused expressions and mouthed ‘please’ with an overly-enthusiastic smile. She turned back around and carefully took the party hat from Sam. “But I’m a massive fan of the Macarena.”

 

* * *

 

_Present Day_

 

Jon looked like he hadn’t registered what she had said. Maybe that was a good thing. Did she _really_ want the first thing she said to him in six years to be her saying she had already fucked him?

“That’s a no then?”

_Damnit_.

His face was deadly serious, as if it was an automatic reaction of his to respond to her sexualised statement with further sexualised comments. Her mouth opened and shut, as he just continued to stare at her like she was the most bizarre thing to ever walk in this office and he probably had a lot of bizarre things to walk into this office.

“What…” He almost definitely didn’t have a sentence formed in his head before he started speaking and so he just seemed to give up on it. She didn’t have anything to say now either, so they just stared each other down. She wanted to have the words to say, but there was nothing that could be said to make a difference to what had been done.

Jon shifted on his feet and his expression slowly changed from the serious shock to a tiny greeting of a smile. She wasn’t stupid and knew this was probably just to hide his displeasure at her being there, but all she had wanted was to see him and for him to smile at her and so she returned it with the most genuine of smiles.

“Never thought you would darken my doorway again.”

Maybe six years was enough time for all the raw emotions to pass them by.

Maybe that was why he smiled as he said that.

Maybe she was just wrong for that to still feel like a punch in the gut.

Maybe she was weird to still think about him as much as she did, as much as she tried to forget him.

“I don’t know… this room looks like it couldn’t get any darker.” She spoke slowly, hoping he was enjoying hearing her voice as much as she enjoyed him speaking. She flipped her head to look around the very bare and dismal looking room.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” She blinked, turning back to him. The polite smile was gone from his face and he was just staring at her intently again. Her body felt unnatural, like she needed to be sat down for this conversation.

To make herself feel more confident in herself, she took a walk around the room.

“Well, it’s not by choice.”

She automatically had to turn to being cold with him, because that hard stare that he was giving her was hurting more than it should. She had to make it seem like she didn’t care about him as much as he was making it seem like he didn’t care about her.

“Somebody drag you here against your will? Or you need help proving that your husband is cheating on you? Because I’ve got some pretty big stuff going on right now.”

She bit down hard on her tongue to stop herself from shouting out that she wasn’t married. That was probably the kind of reaction he wanted from her. His joking uncaringness was something she was used to with him, because that’s what they used to do.

“They say fate’s a bitch or is it karma? One of us must have been a pretty big asshole recently to cause this.” She didn’t know why she was dragging this out and Jon didn’t look like he cared for the way she was going on as well.

She stopped at the desk and wiped its’ surface with one of her fingers, then examined the dust on it – all in an attempt to look more at ease and as if she was taking her time to get to her point.

“Anyway,” Daenerys continued on, finally daring to look at him again. “I don’t know if you know I work for the police now as a detective and…”

“Holy shit. You’re here for the case?” He got to the conclusion very quickly. Too quickly. It made her wonder if perhaps he knew already what she did as a living and that thought got her heart beating quicker.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” She breathed out. Jon ran a hand through his hair, clearly getting the second shock of the day. “I don’t know if you realise, but this is linked to past murders of the same pattern… I… I worked on that case and so they sent me up for it.”

“Murder? I’m working on the basis that she’s still alive.”

That one sentence sent this conversation in an entirely different direction. It wasn’t Jon, her ex, standing in front of her now, but Jon, her competitor of sorts, who could make this case very hard for her.

“You’re not actually entertaining the idea that she’s alive?” She asked, unable to keep an almost snobbish tone out of her voice despite the fact she hadn’t even had a single briefing on the case itself yet.

Jon shrugged.

“Yeah, I am.”

The intensity of his eyes caused her to take a beat longer to reply and it sounded like a rushed, flailed attempt to prove her point.

“With all that blood, it would be a miracle-,”

“Ah, you’ve got the results back on the blood already then? That’s fast work.” The way his voice drawled just showed how easily he had her trapped there and how confident he was in his own angle of the case.

Daenerys returned his hard glare.

“ _No_ … We’re not working on some little conspiracy here though. This is murder.”

“No body, no murder.”

“Past murders done in the same way, most definitely murder.” Daenerys copied his sentence, giving it a sing-song tone to make it clear she thought he was being ridiculous.

“I think you need to get those results before you start coming to a hard and fast conclusion.”

“Jon, I am telling you I worked on this case. It was all I thought about, it was my life. This looks just like that and I’m telling you it _feels_ like that. You don’t understand the first thing about it.”

She was almost shocking herself with how open she was with him now. It had been so hard to get a single word out before, but now words were falling out easily, because the attention had left their relationship and was now on a case that she was so passionate about.

“Explain it then.” He stayed unmoving, challenging her to prove him wrong.

“Now?” She was flustered, blinking her eyes as she waited for his reaction.

“I’m going to see the Tyrell family now, so if you want to join me and explain on the way.”

She didn’t flinch as he said the strange last name to her. That was clearly the victim’s family name. How had she not prepped herself to know such a simple thing as the victim’s last name? She knew the answer. She had been shell-shocked since the moment she found out about Jon and she was unable to put her complete focus on this case.

Thankfully after this conversation she could stop thinking about Jon, because then the worst was out of the way.

“I obviously can’t speak to any witnesses or the victim’s family with you. That would go against procedure.”

Jon stared at her moment longer and then shook his head, turning away from her.

“Yeah, right. Well, they’re going to provide me with some pretty sound reasons for why she is simply a missing person, so maybe I’ll share that with you. Unless that goes against procedure as well?”

She fought hard against the urge to roll her eyes and merely clenched her fist instead.

“We’ll be having pretty extensive conversations with the victim’s family ourselves.”

It felt like they were kids again, going back and forth to see who had the bigger balls and who would bend first.

“Your team have just left there actually, so I guess you have to get back to work.”

Yes, it was definitely like they were kids again. Jon had got her again by proving he knew more about the current case than she did. That would change though.

She let out a loud sigh, so he could hear just how much he was irritating her.

“I just wanted to encourage you that this is a murder, but clearly I need harder evidence than the fact two ladies of the same age bracket have been murdered in an identical way.”

His eyes were searching hers, like he was trying to find the answer to something in her. She feared what the next words would be to come out of his mouth.

“What difference does the angle I take on this make to you?”

“It’s publicity that we don’t want.”

He stared a moment longer, seeming disappointed with her answer.

“Your hair’s different.”

He pointed at her hair and sauntered past as he said that, as if they hadn’t been discussing the very serious subject of a murder. Daenerys immediately raised one of her hands to touch the ends of her hair, forgetting that she had chopped it all off a few years back. She stood silently in the room, touching her hair, the many inches of her hair that he had got to experience disintegrating in some trash bag somewhere now.

Jon cleared his throat and she flipped her head around to face him. He was jingling keys in his hand.

“I kind of need to lock up before I leave.” Daenerys briefly nodded, feeling disgusted that she was more moved by his comment on her hair than anything else that had happened that day. She left his office and tried to think of a way to end this horrible conversation, but she couldn’t think of a correct way to do that.

Jon stayed facing away from her and he couldn’t see the way her eyes bored into his back, willing there to be something for her to say to perhaps get some peace in her head. The rattling of Jon’s keys stopped almost suddenly and she watched his head fall down a little. Slowly he turned around, sighing as if this was painful to him.

“If you can then I’d like to hear about the past incidents. We could have a drink.” Daenerys nodded again.

“If it’ll change your mind…?”

There was no answer, but he pulled what seemed like a business card, but it was just his name and number written out by hand on a bent up piece of card. She reached out to take it and the second their hands touched was the second she realized six years wasn’t long enough for this to not be raw anymore. His touch was the same as it was all those years ago and it terrified her.

It terrified her, because she had attempted to go on dates and see other people properly, but nothing sparked an electric current through her quite like that brush of fingers that lasted a mere three seconds.

She practically ran off without another word, because she didn’t want him to see her flushed face, for him to see how much he still affected her. When she got outside, she breathed in the cold air and allowed the heat of that situation to leave her slowly. She was out of breath, despite not enduring any major physical activity. She hated that he could still cause her body to do that with no real attempt on his part.

Adding alcohol to the mix would be dangerous. If she met up with him, which her body was screaming at her to do, then she would have to be completely non-alcoholic… or just limit herself to one… Well, no more than two.

They had important things to discuss anyway, so it wasn’t like she was going to get into any embarrassing, soul-crushing situation. She just needed to forget that the first time she ever consumed alcohol in his presence was also the time they started all of this.

* * *

 

_September 20 th, 2008_

 

Sam wasn’t lying when he described the party as a child’s party with added alcohol. Copious amounts of secretly drank alcohol, otherwise Sam’s mum would think they were far too drunk. She led the others into the room that was filled with no more than five other people. She had given a nervous smile around at everyone there as she stood with a party hat on.

It became apparent that she hadn’t thought this through enough and she had dragged her poor friends into this as well, but then she heard Missandei excitedly exclaim;

“Oh my God, they have ice cream and jelly!”

The next two hours were made up of musical statues (Dany won), musical chairs (Dany lost out to Sam), cutting the birthday cake and making friends with Sam and most of the other guys who were there. She learnt the others to be Grenn, Pyp, who was in the band with Jon and Sam, and Edd.

She had a great time and was highly intoxicated after doing shots in the bathroom with Sam and Missandei.

It was an incredibly strange night, but she loved the idea of a children’s party with alcohol and she expressed this lovingly to Sam’s mum. She seemed to realise at this point that people were destroying her sweet idea and quietly headed to bed.

However Jon was being a proper stick in the mud. Surprise, surprise.

He not only looked like he wanted to be sick at the thought of playing pass the parcel, but he was doing his best to avoid a one-on-one conversation with her.

“Is he always like this?” Dany whispered dramatically to Sam, as she watched Jon walk into the kitchen. Sam loudly laughed.

“He’s wearing a party hat.” He said, like this was enough for him.

Shortly after Grenn and Edd announced that they needed to leave and with one look at Missandei and Grey making out on the sofa, Dany knew it was time for them to leave.

She stood up from the sofa with a lot of effort and headed to the kitchen where Jon was drinking a beer by himself.

“Just to let you know,” She started loudly, after marching over to him. Jon looked a little bit frightened by the loud tone she was speaking in. “Although I’m convinced you don’t care, that I’m leaving.”

“Now?” She was furious at the fact that he seemed to actually care that she was going. Where was this care for the last few hours?

“No, in an hour or so, I’m just giving you a heads up.” She drawled with zero attempt to cover up both her sarcasm and her annoyance.

“Okay, see you around.” Now he was back to his usual uncaring self.

“You won’t, but sure.”

She walked out the kitchen with a decided fury, but then she realized that she of course couldn’t leave it like that. She never left a conversation feeling like she hadn’t said her piece.

“Can I just ask why you’re seemingly so pissed off with me?” Jon took a long sip of his beer before answering.

“You really want to know?”

“No, I’m just asking for fucking fun.” This probably would have sounded much more badass if she hadn’t teetered slightly on her heels as she said it.

“Well, I gave you my number and you said nothing. I could have told you the house party was cancelled and then you just invited yourself in to Sam’s birthday party when he doesn’t even know you.”

This was a hit to Dany’s ego. She had been pretty confident that she had made the party. “Okay, Sam invited me in and made me feel welcome. In fact everyone made me feel welcome apart from you – the person who invited me. You gave me your number, yes, and was all sexy when you did it - you probably shouldn’t act like an asshole when someone actually accepts your invitation.”  

Her rant ended with a loud indignant huff and with her hands flailing everywhere just to show her anger with him in many, many ways.

And yet he had the absolute indecency to smirk at her.

“What was that last thing?” He asked ever so casually. Dany paused, willing herself not to turn red.

“Don’t act like an asshole.”

“The thing before that?” He was still smirking.

“You’re still being an asshole.” Dany said through gritted teeth.

“Okay.” He said with a shrug, going back to take another sip of his beer. Dany let out a strained groan.

“God, you act like you’re so tough. It’s infuriating.”

“So do you.”

She stared at him for the longest moment, wondering if that was true, but she finally shook her head and let out a confused laugh.

“Shut up. No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do. I don’t know how the fuck to talk to someone like you. That’s infuriating.”

He was staring at her with such honesty in his eyes. Breaking down a ‘bad guy’ to be open with her was such a turn-on that she just stared at him and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat.

“You don’t need to talk to me right now.”

They continued staring at each other as Jon took his sweet time placing his beer back down on the counter and then it all happened very quickly. They sped to each other and Jon’s hands cupped her small face and she pulled him down towards her by grasping at his shirt. Just before their lips touched, Dany gasped.

“Wait, have you been smoking tonight?”

Jon blinked, clearly angry that she was ruining the moment.

“No.” He rasped out, still moving towards the mouth.

Their lips met and it was how most drunken kisses went – kind of gross, but something you wanted more and more of. It wasn’t a polite kiss, their tongues were already introducing themselves to each other in seconds. Dany sighed into the kiss and when she could assure that yes, she definitely enjoyed kissing Jon Snow, she pulled away from him.

 “Well, I’ll see you around.” She said with a smile. Jon blinked, falling back a few steps as if still drunk off the kiss.

“Wait, you’re still going?”

“My friends need to go, I’m drunk and I’m still not entirely convinced that you’re not a murderer.” Dany offered as an explanation.

“I’m not.” Jon looked incredibly confused by her once again.

“Aha, that’s what a murderer would say.” Dany commented, wagging a finger at him.

“I don’t know how to prove I’m not a murderer.”

“Hmm… I’m not sure either, but I’m not going to allow you to prove when I’m heavily intoxicated at a party with just five other people.”

“Wow, you are so weird.”

She liked that Jon looked a little bit in awe of her as he said those words. She felt a little warm and fuzzy, but maybe that was the vodka.

“I’m going to give you a missed call, so if there’s no contact it’s now on your head, okay?” She said, hoping to remember to do that once she located her phone.

“Okay.”

She smiled and gave him what she hoped was a cute little wave.

“See you around.”

* * *

 

_Present Day_

 

After the somewhat painful meeting with Jon, Daenerys headed to her rented out apartment. It was right in the city centre and was actually very swanky. She couldn’t really appreciate it obviously as her brain was being eaten away at the thought of Jon and also the feeling like she wasn’t prepared for this case.

Before heading back to the station, she read through the limited information she had been given on the case.

Margaery Tyrell was the name of the suspected victim.

Blood was found that was thought to belong to the victim. If it all belonged to her then she would be most likely dead at this point. Blood was found embedded in the carpet of her bedroom floor, on the doorframe to her bathroom, on the bathroom floor and a lot was in the bath. This made it difficult to determine where she was likely to have been attacked in her flat.

Bright orange flowers lay in the blood on the bedroom floor. She was sure they must begin with ‘M’, because the flowers used before started with the same letter of the victim’s name showing that it wasn’t random in the slightest.

 

She walked back into the station, determining that she would have to find out what desk she could make her own for the time being, so she wasn’t stood around in the office pointlessly.

However she didn’t need to wait around, because as if Tarth knew she was there, she popped her head out of a room that was opposite her own office.

“DI Targaryen!” She practically shouted, causing a lot of people milling around to look around. “Come here please.”

Daenerys quickly crossed the room, her heels clicking as she walked, alerting everyone around her that she was DI Targaryen.

Tarth shut the door before Daenerys even got there, so she had to open the door herself and make an entrance into the room. In there was Waters, who she had already met, and another lady.

“DI Targaryen, this is DI Greyjoy.” She had a hard face, but after giving Daenerys a once over with her eyes, she seemed to approve and gave what looked like an attempt of a smile. Daenerys smiled back.

“Pleasure.”

“Right, the results are finally back, so if you want to take a seat.” Daenerys stared at the rest of the room with confusion etched on her face.

“Is this the case briefing?” She was obviously asking why the fuck there weren’t more people in the room for such a high-profile case.

“You’ll see why.” Tarth stated firmly with a single nod. Daenerys took a seat without another word, not feeling comfortable to argue when this wasn’t even where she was stationed.

The screen before them filled with a photo of what must have been Margaery Tyrell. She was young, pretty and looked like she had a whole prosperous life ahead of her. Yet there were only four people in this room who apparently were going to be in charge of finding out who the hell ended this poor girl’s life.

“The blood on the bathroom floor is human blood. Looking at the blood types of the parents, it seems like it would be Margaery’s blood.” Daenerys sighed with relief. She was right and Jon was wrong. They could get on with this.

“The blood on the bedroom floor is a mixture of human and cow blood.” Daenerys gripped the sides of the table. “The blood in the bath and the door frame is purely cow blood. This has therefore gone from a homicide to a missing person’s case.”

What the… He couldn’t have been actually right, could he?

“Fuck!” Daenerys yelled, causing everyone else to slowly turn their heads towards her.

“Usually finding out that someone most likely isn’t dead is usually a good thing.” Greyjoy commented before turning back to Tarth.

“Yes, as I was saying, it’s looking very possible that it’s been staged, so she can get away from someone. Greyjoy found out from the victim’s family that there was an ex she could have wanted to escape.”

“Yes, we need to look at it further.” Greyjoy added.

Daenerys was shaking her head.

“You are all the resources we can get on this case, now that it’s been moved down in priority.”

“ _No, no, no_. There is definitely more to this than just her setting up as you’re suggesting.” Everyone turned to her now. “This was set up to look exactly like the London murders. There must be a reason there… Maybe she knew something or…”

“DI Targaryen, you –,”

“What were the flowers? Do we know what they were?”

“Marigolds.”

 All the females whipped their heads towards Waters. He looked surprised by the intensity of everyone’s faces. Daenerys felt everything racing in her body.

The letter ‘M’.

“I… I do a bit of gardening. I knew it from the first look at the crime scene.”

Daenerys wasn’t paying much attention to the detail he was providing though.

“Crime scene… I need to go now. There’s way more to this.” She stood up abruptly then.

“I’m not saying there’s not more to this, but it’s not murder. I agree that you all should be going to the crime scene again.”

Daenerys turned to Greyjoy and Waters, as if that was settled now.

“Okay, I need just a minute and then let’s go.”

Daenerys left the room and went to the nearest quiet spot she could find.

She wasn’t stupid. As soon as her London office got wind of this, they would probably give her a week up here instead of the offer of ‘as much time as she needed to crack it’, so she needed to work fast.

She needed information from a non-police angle. That’s what she told herself, as she searched in her pockets for the grubby card she was handed earlier.

She dialled the number before she could talk herself out of it.

It went to voicemail.

“Jon, it’s Daenerys. We need to meet tonight. Let’s say 9. Text me the easiest place for you to meet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUT I'M A MASSIVE FAN OF THE MACARENA. (just going to continually post my favourite of Dany's quotes in my author notes)
> 
> Thank you so much for the lovely reviews and for giving me kudos - it means a lot! Hope you continue to enjoy it. 
> 
> Need your help as well...What star sign do you think Dany and Jon would be? I have my own feeling, but I wanted to make sure most people were on the same page as me, so I don’t disappoint anyone (totally assuming everyone considers star signs to be as big a deal as I do)


	4. Missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on the train, I ask why did I come again?  
> Can I confess, I've been hanging round your old address?  
> You're long gone, but I can't move on  
> And I miss you  
> Like the deserts miss the rain  
> \- Missing, Everything but the Girl (a great 90s hit that speaks this fic to me) 
> 
> okay so i've worked my butt off to get this to you before i go on my week long holiday (i know i didn't post last week but i was busy eating easter eggs), but i honestly had no time to edit so i expect loads of mistakes I'M SORRY, I'LL PHONE EDIT AND HOPEFULLY MAKE IT BETTER. 
> 
> IMPORTANT as the name comes up in this chapter: JOFFREY IS NOT JAIME'S SON IN THIS WORLD. OK

_Present Day_  

Daenerys stared at the security camera that overlooked the entrance to the flats where Margaery lived.

“It’s broken.” DI Greyjoy said, knowing that’s what Daenerys was thinking. She opened her mouth to ask if she knew how long they had been broken for, but Greyjoy got in quickly again. “The building owners said it was probably a week ago that it broke.”

Daenerys felt like this was a win. This must have been pre-conceived, but that could have been Margaery’s doing to ensure nobody knew she just left of her own free will. Not exactly a win then.

“Have we requested the footage? There might be something from -,”

“They record over it every day, which isn’t very helpful, but sure,” Greyjoy sighed, expressing a clear indication that she found Daenerys’ efforts to be futile. “I guess we can request them.”

Daenerys gave another curt nod before turning away to access the building.

She could already tell that Greyjoy agreed that it was a waste of time to have them looking into this, but Daenerys wouldn’t stop. She could hear the steps of Greyjoy and Waters trailing behind her on the steps.

Daenerys wasn’t sure what floor they were going up to and so it didn’t really make sense that she was leading the way, but it became clear when she got to the very first floor as she saw the police tape covering one of the doors that resided there. There were only two doors there.

Daenerys hated the moment right before entering a crime scene and so she stalled one last time.

“Have all the residing neighbours been asked about seeing anything?” Greyjoy looked like she was on the verge of rolling her eyes.

This was going to be a struggle of a case until she could prove anything.

“DS Waters and I went to everyone in this block of flats. No screams or sounds of struggle.” She commented with a shrug.

“Although the old guy who lives downstairs said he heard her in the corridor downstairs speaking to a male.” Waters supplied in a much more helpful way. Daenerys felt like they could get on very well, as he was new and willing to learn. Daenerys could very well use that attitude to her advantage. Greyjoy had obviously been in this game for too long and thought she knew this case inside and out.

“Did he give a time?”

“Around 8PM I think.”

“And the house was found like this at what – 10PM?” Daenerys asked, her eyes darting between Greyjoy and Waters to see who would answer first.

“10:30PM by her brother. _Apparently_ he comes by after dinner sometimes to give her leftovers.” Greyjoy replied.

“And the door was found closed or open?”

“Open.”

Greyjoy looked like she was waiting impatiently for Daenerys to come to the same answer as her, but what that could be Daenerys wasn’t sure.

“Look I understand that you’re under the same impression as DCI Tarth and are calling this a missing person case, but it’s still a missing person. It should be dealt with urgency and importance -,”

“Just check the flat.” Greyjoy cut in. Daenerys was infuriated at the fact that Greyjoy kept interrupting and was about to say something else, but Greyjoy continued. “Let’s go inside the house and try to tell me that she was taken against her will.”

Maybe it was Greyjoy’s intimidation, but Daenerys found herself obliging to what she said. She gave a swift nod and went to put on her gloves to not contaminate the crime scene.

“They’ve got everything they need already and we’re allowing the family back tomorrow, so whatever.” Greyjoy replied and lifted up the crime scene tape to open up the door without any gloves. Daenerys internally sighed, but on the outside she simply put the gloves back into her pocket and followed Greyjoy inside.

The flat was modern and immaculately designed. It wasn’t difficult to picture a young girl having lived here. It was a studio flat, so the kitchen flowed into the living room and into the bedroom. The bed laid in front of exposed brickwork and a pretty and slightly unnerving painting lay front and centre of the back of a girl with long, flowing red hair.

No amount of prettiness could take away from the fact that blood still lay in the middle of the floor with little yellow markers to show where the blood for forensics had been collected. 

Greyjoy stopped in the middle of the room and turned back to Daenerys and Waters as if giving them a speech.

“No damage to property within the house apart from that chair that’s been knocked over.” Daenerys turned to her left-hand side to observe the chair in the kitchen that was on its side. “A glass was also found just at that table. It was taken to forensics. I haven’t seen that in the intelligence package, but I’m assuming it was hers. Anyway, it suggests that she was knocked from the chair and what – dragged all the way over here to be murdered?”

It was quite a distance from the fallen chair to the pool of blood, but Daenerys didn’t think this made a difference to the case.

“She could have been dragged. She could have been pushed. She could have tried to run and got caught. I’m sorry to speculate, but that’s not enough to -,”

Greyjoy ignored her and continued on.

“Everything else is in perfect order and remarkably clean. Her wardrobe is only half full and -,”

“We don’t know how many clothes she had!”

“The strangest thing is that in this whole place she doesn’t have a single suitcase or bag big enough to carry clothes in. Unless of course she’s already taken the suitcase for the clothes that are missing.”

Daenerys didn’t know what else she could say in that moment and Greyjoy’s face grew with conviction at the sight of Daenerys growing just slightly crestfallen.

“There are hundreds of little things that don’t make sense about this crime scene. If you came here by yourself, forgetting about your case, then what be your conclusion?”

Daenerys bit down hard on her bottom lip, trying to think what the hell she could say that didn’t make her look completely stupid for running with this case.

Her phone buzzed against her hip in her blazer pocket. She was thankful for an excuse to leave the current intensity and whipped it out to look at.

It was a blunt text from Jon.

_Meet at The Angel. 9PM. Jon._

With just a single, unexciting text, her head had immediately gone from crime to Jon.

 

* * *

 

 

_September 23 rd, 2008_

Dany left the building where her Criminology lectures took place to find Jon Snow in his signature leather jacket taking a drag on a cigarette. Upon seeing her appear in the doorway though he crunched it up underneath his shoe and gave what could only be described as a sheepish smile.

They had finally texted at this point, but they hadn’t really agreed to meet up. He had said he was possibly free this evening and she had told him when and where she would be done with her lectures for the day. He never responded to say if he would be there or not, so it still caught her a little by surprise.

“Dany, are you coming?” Doreah, Dany’s new course friend, called, as Dany now stopped in her tracks, smirking in Jon’s direction.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll just… uh, catch you up.” Dany replied with a nod of her head. Doreah shrugged and continued walking.

Dany stood still for just a moment before marching over to Jon with a lot of enthusiasm.

“I can’t believe it!” She called, making sure to lace each word with absolute surprise.

“What?” Jon asked, sounding as if he was trying to play off whatever he should feel guilty about. He continued giving his easy smile at her. “You didn’t actually expect me to quit smoking when you say one thing?”

“No, I can’t believe I’m seeing you in daylight – I thought you could be my first encounter with a vampire.” Jon furrowed his brow before letting out a soft laugh.

“Well, I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”

“You have.” She crossed her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow. “How will you ever make this up to me?”  

Since kissing him, she had considered a _lot_ of ways he could have made it up to her, but she would keep it to herself for now.

“Jesus, what lecture have you just had? You seem more wired than when you’re drunk.” Jon commented with a shake of his head.

Dany snorted.

“I do Criminology, and yes, I’m always more wired when I’m sober.” Jon rolled his eyes.

“Is this why you were accusing me of being a murderer?”

“Hey, better to be safe than not sorry.” Dany threw up her hands in innocence. Jon raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Think you’ve got that the wrong way around.”

“Have I?” She questioned, scrunching up her face as she considered it. “Nope, better to be safe than _not_ sorry. Can’t be sorry if you’re dead.”

“Wow.” He murmured, shaking his head before a chuckle left him.

She decided she liked making someone like Jon laugh.

“Well, I study Law – they’re kind of interlinked.”

“Is this why you’re unable to give a direct answer?” Jon looked momentarily caught off guard.

“I think I’m pretty direct.”

“I don’t know, I’m still waiting for an answer on how you’re going to make it up to me for the severe disappointment.”

She said all this in a deeply sweet voice, but her face was set in a challenging expression. He seemed to catch on to this. He scratched the back of his head as he thought it through, as Dany hoped he would take up the challenge.

“Uhm…” He genuinely seemed frazzled and that surprised Dany. Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know how to speak to girls like her. “Well, I guess I could get you the first round of drinks or… or do you want to get food instead?”

Dany could only stare at him for a moment in confusion.

Maybe when he said he didn’t know much about love it was because he genuinely hadn’t been presented with the opportunity to fall in love.

Maybe he wasn’t an actual ‘bad boy’ as she had thought.

Maybe he was just a shy guy with a lot of defenses and bad social skills, but he wasn’t the guy you just casually saw.

Dany shook these new ideas from her head, because they didn’t benefit her in any way right now. They didn’t give her what she wanted from him right now.

Instead she gave him a smirk and tilted her head before giving him her almost coy answer.

“I was thinking of another way you can make it up to me.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Present Day_

“I get what you’re saying, Greyjoy, and under normal circumstances I would completely agree, but why copy the scene of famous murders from years back? When they didn’t even happen in Manchester originally.”

Greyjoy was driving her and Waters back to the station. She looked exasperated with the fact that after the initial shock, Daenerys still wouldn’t quit the questions.

“I don’t know,” Greyjoy admitted with a sigh. Daenerys had to fight back a victorious smile.

“And so it isn’t a closed case – the investigation continues.” She failed at keeping the victory out of her voice.

“Okay, okay, but you’ve got nothing apart from a weird coincidence.”

“I guess you’re right,” Daenerys began in an extremely sarcastic tone. “Apart from, you know, the security camera footage and the glass that hasn’t been checked.”

“And the man who lives downstairs who heard her and a man talking the night of.” Waters added, popping his head between the two ladies from the backseat. He spoke with an enthusiasm that could only be of someone new to the homicide world of detective work.

“Thank you, Waters.” Daenerys said, but the smugness in her tone was definitely directed at Greyjoy.

“Probably the boyfriend or ex or whatever he was, who she probably then decided she needed to leave, and then faked her own death.”

“Do you know how many times you said ‘ _probably_ ’ then?” Daenerys asked, ignoring the rest of what she said for a moment before she caught onto something. “Earlier you said ex, but now it’s a whatever?”

“Well, even the family were confused what their status was. Bad news by the sounds of it.” Greyjoy pulled into the police station car park at this point.

“What’s his name?”

“Oh, I’ve got this one! It was Jeffrey… _No_ , Joffrey Baratheon! Yes!” Waters announced excitedly.

“Really quite the achievement.” Greyjoy drawled, sarcasm lacing every word and Daenerys thought that if they ceased butting heads with each other then they might work quite well with together.

“I don’t get why guys become boyfriends if they’re going to be pieces of shit.” Gendry pondered.

“You and millions of girls around the world wonder the exact same thing.” Daenerys quipped.

“Like I have a girlfriend, I mean… she’s my best friend. She’s a girl, who is a friend, and I’d never ever hurt or be mean -,”

Greyjoy and Daenerys spoke at the same time.

“Shut up, Waters.”

“That’s quite irrelevant.”

Greyjoy and Daenerys gave each other a small knowing look before getting out of the car. Daenerys felt her phone buzzing once again, but knew that this time it was a phone call. She reached for it and saw it was Jorah calling her.

With a sigh, she turned to the others.

“I’ll meet you in there. Find out about that glass -,”

“We’re on it.” Waters commented before turning to leave.

Daenerys braced herself for the conversation she knew was coming.

“DCI Mormont, I was going to call you tonight with an update on the case.” She said with forced optimism after clicking for the call.

“I’ve spoken with DCI Tarth and DSU Lannister. It seems that it’s no longer a murder case.” His voice sounded pained, so Daenerys knew there was no good news in this call.

“Yes, but there are still many unanswered questions here.”

“You were sent there, because DSU Lannister thought this was linked to the flower murders.” Sometimes the case was referred to as ‘the flower murders’, as everyone knew what was meant by that.

“And I still think it’s related to that.”

“You’re too valuable a person to just be assisting with a missing person case in another district. We need you back here.”

“No, _Jorah_ , please,” Calling him by his name was a desperate cry for help. She knew she was utilizing the possible feelings Jorah had for her by using his name to make them appear closer, but it was all the leverage she had right now. “I’m telling you there is a reason why these two cases have come together. Just give me some more time.”

There was a long sigh on the other end of the phone.

“I can get you till the end of the week.”

Daenerys couldn’t hide her relief.

“Thank you.”

She clicked the call off, relief quickly fading as she realized she needed more information to magically drop in her lap.

She needed this conversation with Jon to pay off.

 

* * *

 

 

_October 29 th, 2008_

A deep moan was released from Dany’s mouth that vibrated in Jon’s ear. The feeling of a tongue snaking across her collarbone was quickly replaced by hot breath as something was softly murmured back to her.

“Shitting hell, you make so much noise.” Despite the exasperation that filled Jon’s voice, it could not cover up the pride she knew Jon felt for his actions instilling this much joy in Dany.

A happy, yet equally exasperated sigh left her.

“If you do _that_ , then I’m going to make noise.” She said with gritted teeth, as she grabbed his hair with her tiny hand and pulled him up to face her.

“What was ‘ _that_ ’?” Jon was giving her a cheeky smile and Dany cleared her throat to let him know that he was testing her.

“You know what you were doing.” She stated blandly. Jon only continued to grin like a kid who won a medal in a school race.

“Was it this?” His hand laced up her inner thigh, threatening to explore just how wet she was because of him.

“No.” She struggled to say in an even tone as his hand continued to itch up her dress. She swatted it away.

He instead moved his mouth to the bottom of neck again and kissed it roughly, his tongue dancing on her clavicle. She gasped out and nodded silently. He abruptly stopped due to her reaction.

“Oh, was it _that_?” He took his hand again and delicately tucked some of her hair behind her ear, his fingers tickling the space just under her ear that made her tiny hairs stand on edge. “Or was it _that_?”

The boyish smile of pride disappeared from his face and instead he was looking at her intently now, like she was something worth studying.

She hated him doing that; it ruined the illusion she had created of just a casual relationship between them and she had to put a tighter lock on possible feelings that could come out for him. 

She lightly pushed him off her before he could see how weak she actually was. She let out a sarcastic laugh and patted him on the cheek to dissolve the situation of her pushing him away from her.

“I think you should leave the teasing to the experts, sweetheart.” She turned away from him to do up one of the buttons on her dress and fetch her cardigan that was on the shelf of the less than hygienic janitor’s cupboard they were in. 

It had been just over month since Dany had propositioned Jon and they had been meeting up under the most casual of affairs. They met usually twice a week and Dany had tried to keep any other type of communication to a minimum.

As Jon had revealed that he lived at his family home that was out of the question for their hookups, so they often found themselves in his car or her dorm room if she was able to secure that Missandei wouldn’t be in and today was the first time they had attempted to mess around between lecture in a janitor’s cupboard that was near where her next lecture was.

It was a desperate and gross attempt to fill her physical need. She knew she should have stopped all this after the first completely satisfying time with him, but her greedy self thought that this arrangement could work. She pretended that Jon was fine with it and she was too, but deep down she knew she was getting attached. The bottom line was still the same though – no relationship.

“I need to go anyway.” Dany blurted out, untucking the hair that got caught underneath her cardigan and turning back to him. Jon’s expression was unreadable. She continued to look at him as if she wanted him to say something, but no, no, she had told herself that she wanted minimal communication.

Sighing she turned to leave the cramped room, but in a swift movement a mop fell against her and Jon pushed it back, also blocking her in with that action.

“You know Greyworm and Winterfell are playing at the same thing tonight?” She nodded her head.

“Yeah, Missy’s going to support Grey.” Another thought came to her. “Would it be as smoky and gross as the other place?”  

Jon released his arm from blocking her.

“I know these smoking places are disgust-,”

“You say that like you’re not a smoker anymore.” Dany replied, quirking an eyebrow.

“Well, I quit.”

Dany had to do a very good job at stopping herself from smiling at that surprising news. She wondered why he had actually quit now. Had her words really made an impact even though he pretended they hadn’t?

“Would you come to support Winterfell?”

She considered what answer to give him. This would be the first time they would have to interact in front of other people instead of the seedy little secret thing they had developed.

The mop fell against her arm again and Dany pushed it off of her.

“Jesus,” The mop kept falling back and so she just propped it against the wall with her hand. “I suppose I could support my friends.”

Jon was giving her his intense look again and even began leaning in towards her as if about to kiss her.

“Am I included in that?”

“Of course,” She breathed out, daring to give him a smirk to hide her own uncertainty over what he was. “What else would you be?”

Jon fell back from her, as if she physically pushed him away with her words. Although it was a joke, his reaction made her feel like she had been completely serious.

She had to look down and away from him, as she pulled the handle down and finally got out of the seedy room.

Of course Doreah was just walking past right at that moment.

“Oh my God, why the fuck were you in there?” Her eyes flitted up past Dany’s head and the laughter she was clearly now suppressing told her that Jon had just walked out as well.

 _Fan-bloody-tastic_.

Doreah seemed to be trying to compose herself as she pointed at her own lips.

“You’ve got a little smudge… right there.”

Dany carefully wiped at the corner of her lip.

“You’ve just made it worse by doing that.”

She took a ruthless wipe at the bottom of her face and went forth to take Doreah away. Doreah opened her mouth to say something further, but Dany got in there first.

“Shut the fuck up.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Present Day_

Daenerys fiddled with the straw in her half empty glass of double vodka and orange juice. She didn’t want a straw due to the problems it created with pollution and wildlife, but of course they ignored her request and her she was with a straw.

Looking at her watch, she could confirm that Jon was now four minutes late. She was slightly pissed off and nervous now. As soon as she made her way to this pub, she knew why he made her fucking meet him here. They used to live right around the corner from here for a short period of time.

She made a detour to look at the old apartment building they used to live in. It looked different, but it made her feel exactly the same way.

What kind of asshole would force her to remember even more than she currently did about their relationship?

Was it not enough that this was her first time in Manchester since she left all those years ago?

Was what she felt at merely being back in the same city as him not enough pain to put her through?

The door opened to the small pub and in came Jon like a replica of the Jon she used to know. He had on a fucking leather jacket. When she thought of Jon, which was a lot of the time, she always thought first of that jacket.

He gave a short nod in her direction and headed to the bar where she figured he would be getting his own drink. This gave her time to get over the small heart attack she had over him wearing a leather jacket.

When he came back over, she had just finished gulping down the remains of her drink. She had definitely promised herself not to drink a lot, but she couldn’t not drink if she had to interact with her ex.

He placed down a pint for himself and a glass of ros _é_. She did a double take at the drink and Jon which must have prompted his reaction.

“Shit, you don’t drink it anymore do you?” He asked, looking slightly pained, but not surprised, as he took a seat opposite her.

“No, no, of course I do. You just remembered.”

She took a sip of it as if to prove herself.

The truth was that she strictly drank red or white wine when she drank wine now depending on the occasion. She wasn’t sure why she lied to Jon about that, but maybe it was just so that it felt like he still knew who she was or so she could pretend she was still the same girl that he used to love.

He gave a small smile and dropped a packet of cigarettes on the table that came from his jacket pocket.

Daenerys couldn’t help herself and she had to ask the question.

“You smoke again now?”

“I don’t have anyone to quit for anymore.” His automatic response terrified her. She looked to his face with an open expression that showed her suppressed hope and sadness for the two of them. Jon quickly shrugged and added, “I just do it when I drink.”

Daenerys turned away, her cheeks probably flushed from that unexpected and small revelation of Jon’s, but it didn’t mean anything at the end of the day. They were over.

She wanted to start speaking, but was unsure whether she needed to start with small talk about what was new with his life or get straight into it. Was it too rude to skip the small talk? Or was that going to look like she was pretending to care about his life? Even if she genuinely wanted to know?

“So tell me about the case.” He said, allowing her to be free from asking him anything.

“Before I do,” She started slowly, having dreaded this part of the conversation the most. “I’m going to tell you something that I don’t need to tell you, so just remember that.”

Jon’s face grew more serious than before. Maybe he misconstrued what this was going to be about.

“Say it then.”

“It’s not a murder investigation anymore. You were right about the blood.”

He was smiling now, looking incredibly smug.

“Well, I told -,”

Daenerys gave a disapproving glare.  

“If you dare finish that sentence then I’ll walk right out.”

Jon looked like he had to fight with himself not to finish that sentence. He opened and shut his mouth a few times and then sat back in his seat.

“Continue.” He took a sip of his pint.

Daenerys visibly relaxed and removed a part of the case files from what she had worked on years back.

“The first woman who was found was named Shae. She was found strangled and with her wrists cut with sunflowers surrounding her and laid over her body. She was naked and sexually assaulted. It was forced entry into her home.”

Her hands shook, as she showed Jon a photo of just the flowers, so as not to break the rules much more than she already was.

“The second woman was a bit younger and her name was Roslin. She was found in an almost identical way, but this time her neck was slit too and she had roses surrounding her. No signs of forced entry.”

Jon reached out to her hands this time and stopped her from showing him anymore. Daenerys looked up at him and the intensity of Jon’s eyes on her made her look back down.

“You don’t need to continue… I get why it’s important to you.”

Of course he did.

She always forgot, or tried to forget, that Jon had seen her at her worst times and he knew more than anyone why solving this particular case was so fucking important to her.

“And I see the similarities, so what happens now?”

Daenerys was baffled for a second. It was one thing for him to acknowledge that it was important to her, but he was being understanding and seemed like he wanted to maybe do what she wanted to do.

 “I thought we could help each other out.” She tentatively spoke, worried she was only dreaming his seeming want to help.

“Sounds like that would go against the procedure.” He drank from his pint and raised an eyebrow, throwing her words back in her face.

“I want this case solved. I can give you information you would have to claw out of my department and you help me with leads.” She spoke with fierce determination, not taking her eyes off him as much as it pained her to look at him.

“Ah, you scratch my back and I scratch yours?” The playfulness in his voice caused her to relax a bit. He was on her side.

She could never throw up an opportunity to make a sexual innuendo or a sarcastic jab.

“I don’t think we’ll need to get that physical.” She practically purred, leaving a pause long enough for Jon to choke out a suppressed laugh at that, before she got back down to business. “Do we have a deal?”

He was silent for far too long. Drinking his pint and looking like he was heavily considering things. Maybe it wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be.

“We want different things, but -,”

“That sounds like our breakup.”

That changed everything.

He wasn’t right. Not at all.

To simplify their relationship like that was to do them an injustice.

She couldn’t be angry though, because didn’t that mean there was a chance that he felt just as bitter as she did about how they ended? And if he felt bitter, then he still had feelings about it. He still _cared_.

“That isn’t how it happened.” He didn’t reply and so she panicked. She figured they would be having this conversation now then – the conversation about their relationship and why they ended. Was she ready for that? “Can we just fake it and pretend everything is –,”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, okay. I guess we can’t really fake it, but could we not just be professional and -,”

“No, I meant, ‘okay, I’ll help’, Dany.”

It felt like her heart stopped in that moment.

Almost nobody called her that anymore. She used to insist on being called Dany, but now it was Daenerys.

Her mouth slowly formed into a shy smile. Her big eyes stayed on his.

“I don’t think anyone calls me that now.”

“Am I really _anyone_?”

Daenerys couldn’t focus on anything, but his face.

Maybe it was the fact that he had just agreed to help her despite everything that had happened between them…

Or maybe it was because he was making her feel like a teenager again by calling her teenage nickname of Dany…

Or maybe, and probably most likely, it was because she had a double vodka and a large glass of wine…

But whatever the reason, she was ready to admit to herself that she was fucking stupid if she thought she had ever gotten over that boy.

She was not over Jon Snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> review and kudos as usual to make me happy. 
> 
> ooh and follow me on tumblr if you want to see my infrequent posts - apoulos
> 
> hopefully next update (jon snow pov chapter) will be next sunday xoxo


	5. Don't Wanna Think

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback on how Jon and Dany officially got together.   
> Present looks at Jon's home life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Well, I don't wanna think about you right now  
> Don't wanna think about you right now  
> 'Cause if I did, it would be damn bad  
> \----  
> Heartbreak is annoying  
> And I feel it in the morning'  
> Don't Wanna Think, Julia Michaels (who else massively stans julia michaels??)

Jon woke up with what he knew was a hangover. His eyes pricked as they adjusted to the light that came through the window. He rubbed at them roughly and sat up too fast, causing his head to feel like it was literally spinning.

An angry groan released from him and he quickly moved his hands to grab the paracetamol and water that sat on the bedside table, as if he had done this movement a hundred times before.

He swallowed two tablets, downing it with the practically stagnant water that had been sat there for god knows how long.

He looked around the room, as if trying to piece together what had happened the night before. With a swift movement he picked up a half drunk bottle of whiskey that lay on the floor and shoved it in the drawer of his bedside table. His eyes passed over a bit of paper that had been lying underneath the bottle. Picking it up, he already was aware it must have been some notes he made the night before after seeing Dany.

Remembering that he had seen Dany for the first time in… fuck knows how long it had been actually… But for the first few moments of his morning, he thought it was a dream – no, no, he had actually seen her. He had spoken to her. He had grazed her skin one more time.

He thought he would never see her again and he would have been fine with that, because that was easier as he wouldn’t have had to think about her ever again. Now she was here when his life was already in a state of unrest to send him properly over the edge with memories of her and impossible feelings that only she could make him feel.

He hated her.

Yet…

No, he wouldn’t dare finish that train of thought.

He pulled on some jeans, crumpling the piece of paper into the pocket and put on the nearest white t-shirt that didn’t smell bad. He looked and felt like shit, but it wasn’t like it really mattered – he just needed to focus on the one big case he had ever been handed.

Unfortunately by focusing on that case he was now focusing on Dany too. He didn’t want to look at that perfect face with perfect hair living the perfect life, because it was torture.

It was pure torture to see that perfection and know that she made the right choice cutting him out of her perfect life, because look at him now.

He knew she would now see that he wasn’t living the best version of his life now and she would be studying that and noting that she had thrived since their break-up whereas it looked like he had shriveled up since she left him.

It wasn’t all entirely true.

Sure, he was currently in a rough patch, but things might be looking up again.

He was getting a lot of money for the Tyrell case and it was putting his detective services in the news, so it was only a matter of time before he picked up a few more cases.

“Jon! Are you in there, you lazy bastard?”

Jon heaved a sigh as the less than melodic tones of his younger sister along with aggressive banging filled his ears.

That was of course the much bigger part of his rough patch: he was _temporarily_ living back in his family home.

It had been a month already, but Jon was still very hopeful in the temporary status of it all. Thankfully the family home was big enough for him to not feel like he was interfering with everyone who was actually supposed to be there.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Jon replied, opening his bedroom door to the fireball that was Arya Stark. “What time is it?”

She looked furious. He wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve that strong an emotion when he had only been awake for less than five minutes.

“Almost 8.”

Jon gave a light snort of laughter at this revelation.

“Seems a bit harsh to call someone lazy _before_ 8 in the morning.”

“Seems a bit stupid for someone who was so desperate to join my daily coffee morning with Gendry to make us both fucking late for it, you stupid twat.”

Suddenly it dawned on Jon what else he had achieved after his brief meeting with Dany yesterday apart from drinking a lot and scribbling down some notes for the case, he had also texted Arya asking to join her and Gendry for the daily coffee ritual.

He just needed to remember why he had needed to join them.

Arya seemed to notice the change in expression on Jon’s face to one of confusion and so she let out a huff and turned on her heel to walk away.

“You don’t even remember!”

Jon turned her around by the top of her head and she let out a rather animalistic growl in response to it.

“Are you sure you’re not just angry because I’m ruining your date?”

He asked it innocently, but he knew it would piss her off even more. Her eyes grew darker and she practically roared her response at him.

“We are _friends_! It is _not_ a date!” She angrily stared at him for a further few seconds. “Your breath stinks.”

She turned around again and beginning to descend down the stairs.

“Are you coming then?” She asked, not stopping in her march downstairs.   

 He followed her with ease.

“I don’t see why you’re so keen to join us anyway.”

Jon was still trying to figure out his drunken thought process as well, but he couldn’t let Arya know about that.

“Well, just… you know, stag night stuff.”

It was the most logical thing Jon could think of. The fact that his best friend, Sam, was getting married to his girlfriend, Gilly, in just over three weeks, it seemed very feasible that he had that to discuss with Gendry.

Arya stopped and turned around with a disapproving look.

“Ugh, is that seriously important right now? Considering you’re _both_ working on a pretty big case right now, you’d think you would have different priorities.” 

And then he remembered what he was supposed to speak to Gendry about, because Arya had announced that Gendry was working on the same case as Jon and wasn’t that weird? Yup, it was, especially as this meant Gendry and Dany were working together.

It was clear that Gendry hadn’t told Arya yet about Dany and perhaps he hadn’t realised the connection, so wouldn’t say anything, but Jon definitely didn’t want anyone else finding out about Dany being back in his life in such a permanent way.

“Don’t let Sam hear you say that his wedding isn’t important.”

“Whatever,” Arya replied with a roll of her eyes, leading Jon through to the kitchen. “I’m driving.”

When they got into the kitchen, only his Dad stood there, cleaning down a countertop. It was clear that he was just doing that until Jon walked in as he immediately stopped and ushered Jon over with a simple hand motion.

It was the hand motion and intense eyes that him and his brothers and sisters were so accustomed to as being a sign they had done something wrong. Jon wasn’t so used to getting that look nowadays though.

“Morning, where is everyone?” Jon asked, strolling over in an attempt to seem entirely calm.

By everyone Jon meant his mother, Bran and Rickon. They were the only family members who lived here now, along with himself and Arya.

Sansa was in her final year of university in Cambridge and only came back for holidays.

Robb had been out of here for years and had never had a life crisis that meant he had to come home, plus he had been married to Talisa for the past two years and was expecting a child in the next three months.

Robb was living the life Jon had always felt he might get to live one day, but that was diminishing by the year. He tried not to think about that, he didn’t need another reason to feel like he was currently failing at life.

“Rickon and Bran have gone to school already and your Mum is out in the garden.” Jon stopped in front of his Dad and could confirm by the stern lines on his dad’s face that he was about to be told off. “Why is my bottle of very expensive whiskey missing from the cabinet?”

Jon winced.

“That was yours?” He asked, not denying his guilt.

“ _Yes_. Yes, it was.”

“Uhm… I’m sorry. I… I’ll replace it. How much is very expens-,”

“Why don’t you just pick up some average whiskey and we’ll say it’s been replaced.” His Dad’s face opened into a somewhat smile.

“That sounds like something I can afford and very fair.”

He turned to leave, but his Dad’s hand shot out to hold him back by the arm.

“Why was there a need to drink whiskey by yourself on a weekday night?”

“Helps to think. It’s a big case and all.”

It actually also helped to not think about a certain blonde haired lady as well, but that was beside the point.

“Hmm…” His Dad stared at him hard for a further moment. “Smells like you’ve been swimming in it.”

“Come on, there wasn’t enough for me to do that.” Jon said with a sheepish smile.

He let go of Jon’s arm and fished a box of mints from his pocket, wordlessly handing them over to Jon.

It was incredibly embarrassing to be told off by your dad when you were a fully grown adult, he felt like his dad was equally embarrassed to be having to tell him off.

“And by the Gods, don’t let your mother see you. She’ll have a fit and we don’t need that.”

 

* * *

 

 

_December 1 st, 2008 _

Late night kisses and steamed up car windows was what he was now used to.

He and Dany were officially friends with benefits, because he would hang out with his friends, who were now her friends too, then they would get the other’s eye in the pub, club or wherever they were and they would know what the other wanted.

Ten minutes later they would be in the back of his car for heavy make-outs or in her dorm having sex.

It was simple.

Or at least it was supposed to be.

But he always knew he wouldn’t be able to have someone as perfect Dany in his arms and not fall in love with them.

He sucked at making connections with people, he knew that, but she had pushed and he had bent, now he was scared that he was the only one bending to the point of falling here. 

His exploration of her exposed lower body was interrupted by her pulling away from him to give a cough. She pressed herself up and away from his chest with her elbow, continuing to cough.

“You’re really hot when you do that.” Jon commented and Dany silently stuck her middle finger up at him, whilst her other hand pulled something out of her mouth.

She examined it wordlessly before giving him what seemed like a victorious smile.

“You’re not the first guy to tell me that getting _dog_ hair in my mouth is sexy.” She said, raising an eyebrow, before deliciously planting her lips against his again.

By pulling tightly on some of her hair, he pulled her away to speak. Dany seemed annoyed that he was pulling her away from his body, but she always got like that when he wanted to say something during their private encounters.

“You should meet my dog. My parents would make you stay for dinner though.”

He didn’t know why he said it. He could feel himself getting embarrassingly more desperate for something more with her, but he couldn’t stop.  

“Oh, I’m sure,” She kissed him, her tongue teasing his lips for a moment before continuing on. “Mr and Mrs Snow would love making dinner for your ‘friend with benefits’.”

“Mr and Mrs Stark actually.”

She pushed herself up from his chest and stared down at his face with a bemused smile.

“Have you been lying about your name?”

“I was adopted.”

He never usually opened up to anyone about this, but he wanted to if it was to her. He thought this might make some sort of difference in their relationship as well, in the similar way to if you told a friend a big secret and then they became a best friend.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry… I…”

“It’s fine. My parents wanted loads of children, but they always said if they were going to have loads of their own then they wanted to have one who couldn’t have their own family, so they got me when I was four. They were always honest and kept my name as Snow unless I decided to change it to theirs.”

“So you don’t know your parents?”

“No.” Jon supplemented his answer with a firm shake of his head.

“And you don’t want to?”

“I mean I’ll always be curious about where I’m from, but…”

His voice trailed off, but he had clearly sold Dany on the topic, as her eyes didn’t stray from his.

“But your family sound great from what you and Sam have mentioned. If you’ve got a good family then you don’t need the disappointment of finding out where you were from.”

Silence settled. Jon didn’t know what to say back to her, because it seemed like quite a loaded statement, as if she was speaking from her own experience.

He waited patiently for her to open up to him, because that was how these things were supposed to work, weren’t they?

Instead she leaned over in the seat to pick up her t-shirt that had been thrown away in their heated moment and started putting it on, covering up her perfect skin so Jon couldn’t reach it.

“Look,” She started, sighing as she turned back to Jon. One of her hands rested on his lap, but it felt awkward, like it was done to appease him in some way. “I’ve got loads of exams and essays due before Christmas, so I think I won’t be hanging out with everyone as much…”

“You always say sex helps you with exams.” Jon said with a smirk, not ready to see what she was saying.

“Recently it’s been distracting.”

He didn’t get what she meant by that at all, but the almost sad smile on her face suggested this was bad.

“And then I’ll be going home for Christmas, so…”

She shrugged and opened the car door, turning back to him with the same sad smile.

“I’ll text you.”

Jon sat there with nothing to say, because that was the first time he truly realized that he didn’t want late night kisses – he wanted morning, afternoon and night kisses. He wanted passionate, sad, angry, casual and hello kisses.

Yet… how did he word that?

So he said nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

 

_Present Day_

Arya turned off the engine of the car when they parked up at the small café near her university. However she didn’t get out immediately. Jon undid his seatbelt and went to open the door, trying to ignore the fact that she wasn’t too quick to move now.

“Jon!” At the sharp tone of her voice, Jon reluctantly pulled away from the car door. “Thank you. Is there anything going on with you? Apart from all the obvious stuff.”

She didn’t sound as abrupt anymore and she could almost persuade him to say about Dany, but no, he needed to guard that secret, so he shook his head.

“I heard what you said to Dad, but I’m not our parents – you can speak to me.”

She was usually right.

Him and Arya were incredibly close and always had been. Jon was always protective over both his younger sisters, but Arya was the one out of the two of them who chased for his approval and play the games he played even when she was just a toddler. 

She never stopped looking up to him even though in the past year he didn’t think he had been an incredibly great person to look up to.

She would be the worst person to discuss this with though. She would never shut up about it or, worse, want to threaten her with violence.

Jon’s phone buzzed and he risked a glance at it whilst Arya stared at him with imploring eyes that demanded him to open up to her.

**_Dany_ ** _: Meet me outside the back of the station in 30 minutes._

Knowing he didn’t have much time to talk before his meeting, Jon quickly cleared his throat and attempted to give an answer.

“Nah, just the obvious stuff.” He furrowed his brow before adding something on. “And I don’t want to discuss that either.”

“Okay, I’ll let you off.”

“You’re incredibly generous.”

“I told you I would stick with my New Year’s resolution to be kind.” She gave a smug smile.

“Hey, it’s only April.”

She hit his arm and then started undoing her seatbelt to get out.

As they approached the café entrance, Jon could clearly see Gendry waiting with two takeaway coffees there for him and Arya.

Arya practically powered ahead to him, whilst Jon walked at a normal pace.

“Gendry, you better have -,”

“Asked for extra cream? Done and done.” He handed over the coffee with a smile, as Arya snatched it off him. Gendry’s face changed slightly with confusion as Jon walked in the door.

“Oh, hey, Jon. Sorry, I didn’t know you were coming or I would have got you something.”

Arya didn’t let Jon say anything.

“He doesn’t need one. He wants to talk to you about the fucking stag do.” She rolled her eyes dramatically, looking between him and Gendry. “So much important than the fucking murder that’s going on… Anyway I’m like twenty minutes late for my lecture, so I’ll leave you losers to it.”

“So I was interrupting your date?” Jon asked in his most innocent voice.

“It’s not a date.”

“Friend. Repeat after me – friend.”

Gendry and Arya spoke at the same time. One with confusion and one with full-on aggression. They glanced at each other before Arya cleared her throat and nudged Gendry in the shoulder.

“Bye.” She practically ran off.

Gendry blinked repeatedly in what looked like confusion.

“So… Uhm, anyway, what’s this about the stag -,”

“So you’re working on the Tyrell case?” Jon asked, as soon as Arya’s loud steps could no longer be heard.

“Uh, yeah, Jon, you know that I can’t really talk to you about that, right?” Gendry looked uncomfortable, but Jon nodded.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t discuss it with _anyone_. Especially Arya.”

“What?”

Jon heaved out a monumental sigh, annoyed he had to say the next words out loud.

“I’m sure Arya’s told you all about my ex, Dany.”

“No.”

Gendry shook his head. Jon raised an eyebrow.

“ _Okay_ , maybe she did.”

“That’s Daenerys Targaryen.”

Gendry didn’t react for a second and then suddenly his face turned into a confused mess.

“Shit! But… you…”

“Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it with anyone, including you, so can you just keep that part of it all to yourself? I know you tell Arya everything, but, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay… Have you seen her already though?”

Jon closed his eyes, wondering why the hell Gendry thought he could ask him a question about her even though he had just said he didn’t want to discuss this at all. Eventually he opened his eyes and gave a blunt nod.

“Jesus, from what I’ve heard… That’s got to be rough.”

“Yeah, well, things were never straightforward between us.” As an afterthought, he added, “Don’t let it change the way you treat her though.”

Things were straightforward for Jon though. His feelings towards her were always straightforward.

And when they finally officially got together it seemed like it was going to be straightforward for the both of them for the rest of their lives.

 

* * *

 

 

_January 13 th, 2009_

“You know everyone’s meeting us here?” Sam had asked as a way of greeting when Jon went to take a seat with his pint.

“Uhm… yeah, it’s back to uni drinks.” Sam seemed to shift uncomfortably.

“That includes Dany.”

That was Jon’s cue to take his own uncomfortable sip of his pint.

He, of course, knew that Dany was coming. He had been preparing himself mentally for it as soon as he had received a text from Dany the day before.

**_Dany_ ** _: hey stranger, i’m back in good ol’ manc. Do you want to play, I mean, MEET before tomorrow?_

“I know things have been a bit… strange between you for -,”

“Sam,” Jon said with a strained sigh. “We’re all friends.”

Jon could see that Sam wasn’t paying as much attention anymore, as his eyes were focused on the entrance to the pub behind him. He knew what this meant, but he still glanced behind him.

And there she was walking on in with Missandei, Grey and Doreah. She was wearing her infectious massive grin in the direction of their table. Her eyes were just skimming the top of Jon’s head as she ran over to give Sam a hug and said hello to Pyp who was also with them. Jon greeted the others in a less beaming way than Dany, but he was still happy to see everyone – he had grown to like them all in the past few months.

Finally Dany turned towards Jon with what seemed to be a shy smile. He didn’t know she could look shy.

Everyone else seemed quiet for a moment as well, showing that he wasn’t the only one expressing to others about the awkward situation him and Dany were currently in.

Not speaking for over a month to the person who was supposed to be your friend with benefits was kind of an awkward situation, wasn’t it?

Dany looked around the group that were all staring at her and Jon, then let out an overdramatically loud sigh.

“Oh, Jon, look at that, you need a new pint… Come and join me at the bar, won’t you?” She sang in a rather sarcastic and structured way.

“I’ve only had a sip of mine.” He stated pointlessly. Dany sighed once again and dragged him over to the bar by the wrist.

When they got to the bar, she stared at him and Jon shrugged to make it clear that he most definitely wasn’t speaking first.

“I get that you’re annoyed with me, but, you see, things were getting heavy and I needed to put it on pause.”

“And now you want to press play?” She sighed. She did that a lot when she was frustrated. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with her frustration as she focused them on Jon.

“I want… I want to ask you how your holiday was. I want to tell you how horrendous my Christmas was. I also want to keep sleeping with you with no strings attached. I don’t know if we can avoid the ‘heavy’ stuff though.”

This was possibly the most raw and open he had ever seen Dany. It made him feel like they might be closer than they had been before this.

“I don’t think we can either.”

He said simply, his voice sounding more desperate than he intended. Her eyes got wider and she looked down at her hands instead of at his face.

“Then maybe… maybe we just focus on our friendship.”

Jon let out a frustrated groan, causing Dany to look back at him with a rush.

“You’re the one who chased me and pushed me and now that I’m basically in love with you, you don’t care.”

“You… what?” Her eyes got even wider than they were before.

They were interrupted by some tall guy, who looked a lot older than them, as he tapped Dany on the shoulder. She looked puzzled as she looked at his face, but slowly recognition seemed to pass over her.

“Oh hey…” Her voice was filled with an awkwardness.

Who the hell was this guy? He seemed like a massive douche.

“Dany, the girl who slapped me.”

Jon stared between them, wanting to suddenly smile that Dany had slapped this guy. Dany blinked repeatedly.

“Darius… No, Duncan…” The guy was shaking his head at each try. “Come on, help a girl out.”

“It’s Daario...”

“Thank you. Daario, the guy who deserved the slap.”

The smile off the guy’s face disappeared, whereas Dany’s seemed to grow. This Daario guy seemed to finally realise that he was interrupting a conversation and pointed to Jon with a sharp finger to his chest.

“What? Are you with this guy?”

Dany let out an uncomfortable laugh and glanced ever so slightly at Jon. Even though he knew what her response would be, he still held his breath for it.

“No, not really.” Jon felt some sort of anger wash over him. “Although still not interested.”

“Great, so I don’t have to tell him what a mentally challenged and raging bitch you are then.”

Maybe it was his anger at Dany that sent him to clench his fist.

“You’re right, a simple bye will do instead.”

Jon wasn’t listening to Dany’s sharp response as his fist was colliding with this guy’s nose.

“WHAT THE FUCK? Jon, what the fuck were you thinking?” Dany shouted as Daario stumbled backwards as blood already gushed from his nose.

Jon was holding his hand with his other hand and groaning in immense pain. This hurt a lot more than it looked like it would in the movies.  

“Uhm… yeah, I didn’t think that through.”

People seemed to be enthralled with the possible drama that could have been occurring amongst this group of people, but they were paying more attention to the fact that

“Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry, you definitely weren’t that much of a twat that you deserved a punch… I mean, still a twat, but not that much of one.” Dany looked frantic, leaning over Daario and wildly moving her hands instead of tending to him.

She turned back to Jon suddenly with what looked like almost venom in her eyes.

“Jon, go and wait outside.”

Jon was all too happy to follow her instructions. He would have probably been man-handled and escorted out if he waited too much longer anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t have to wait that much longer for Dany to come out. He thought Sam or one of the others might get there first after they saw the shocking series of events, but no, Dany came out first wiping her hands on her jeans as if to say she was done with that situation.

She stared at Jon for a long moment, her eyes not leaving his for a second – not even to glance at his banged up fist. The stare was deeply unsettling.

“Well, I don’t think you’ve broken his nose.”

Her mouth barely moved as she spoke and when it moved, it formed a snarling shape.

Jon raised his hands, despite the pain, to state that he knew he was in the wrong.

“Look, I just wasn’t -,”

“Did you seriously just punch that guy for me?” Her eyes were fiery with what Jon could only assume was rage. “That was such a stupid and reckless thing to do. What if you did some fucking damage? So did you? You did that for me?”

“I guess, I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair, knowing he had fucked it all up with her.

Her eyes turned then and her voice softened when she spoke next.

“Say yes, because that was pretty fucking hot.”

It took Jon a long moment to adjust to the sudden change of direction in the conversation.

“Yes?”

She walked forward and grabbed his face roughly by the cheeks and pulled him in for a harsh kiss on the lips. She pulled away quickly, out of breath.

“I know you said you basically loved me and I’m supposed to say it back, but I just can’t yet… I… I want the boyfriend/girlfriend, go on dates, hold hands and be disgustingly cute thing though… if that’s what you want too?”

And that’s how they officially got together.

 

* * *

 

 

_Present Day_

Jon tapped at his cigarettes as he waited outside the station for Dany to give him an update from her end and he was to give her some information on the suspects. It was crazy that every time he contemplated having a cigarette to ease himself, he thought of Dany. Of course he didn’t before she just pinged back into his life, but now that she was here, he would never have a cigarette without thinking of her repulsion for it.

Based on how things ended between them it should make him want to chain-smoke his way to hell, but it still made him put the cigarettes back in his pocket. He hated that she still had some sort of positive affect on his life.

His phone started ringing as he went through his own cigarette existential crisis and realizing it was his client, he shook his head and made a conscious attempt to sound as professional as possible.

“Olenna,” He greeted, knowing she would have a lot to say. She was a direct person. He had never had someone’s grandma be the primary contact to a case, but she was more relentless than anyone he had ever dealt with before in his profession.

“Jon, dear, we need to have a talk. How soon can you get here for a nice chat over tea?”

He had only spent literally a day knowing this lady and yet he knew this wasn’t going to be good.

“I need to talk to you as well.” He had to update them on what Dany had told him about past similar cases. “I’m in the middle of something, but I can get there -,”

“Psst!”

Jon turned around, slightly alarmed by the other voice he could hear. Dany was poking her head around the corner and strongly gesturing for him to follow her behind the wall.

“Jon?” It took him a second to get back in the conversation with Olenna, because Dany was filling his vision once more. He followed Dany with caution.

“Uhm… Yeah, I’m in the middle of something, so I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

“Hmm… why don’t you actually come for three, so we can prepare the lemon cake?”

“I thought you wanted me there as soon as possible?”

“It’ll be a better conversation with lemon cake.” Olenna persisted and so Jon didn’t want to argue it further.

“Uh… great.” Jon said, hanging up the phone as quickly as he could.

Dany tucked her now short, yet still entrancing short hair behind her ears as she opened up a file in her hands.

It was so fucking difficult to keep hating the person who broke your heart when they stood in front of you so perfect.

He had to keep hating her though.

Her eyes flicked up to Jon and something like concern passed her face, but how could she be concerned for him anymore?

“Had a productive morning?”

Yes, the concern couldn’t have be real as her voice drawled like sarcasm. She must have been referring to his alcohol lingering scent or the fact that he looked exhausted. He rolled his eyes.

“It’s still the morning.” Jon replied, not denying that it hadn’t been productive for him yet. Dany simply smiled and it looked like she was bubbling with excitement.

“Well, I’ve had a super productive morning.” She referred to her file and took out a photo that looked like it had been gathered from security camera footage. “Due to someone tampering with the camera, we only have footage from six days before the incident, but look at this.”

It was Margaery with what seemed like, if he had to guess, a man in a hoodie, but the face couldn’t be seen.

“And?”

Dany had wanted him to push on the topic, as he could see her eyes get more focused with excitement.

He hated knowing that whatever information she had found was getting her aroused. It wasn’t like she was turned on by crimes, but she was turned on by being right. Any time she won an argument with him or got a good grade, then she wanted sex. It was just how Dany worked.

He shouldn’t be thinking about her naked right now in the middle of this conversation, but he was.

Her pale skin was fucking ingrained in his memory.

“And after this shot, Margaery goes inside the building, whilst this suspicious male waits outside and then he approaches the area where the camera must be situated and then there’s no more footage.” As if she needed to drive the point home. “This was premeditated.”

Jon nodded slowly.

“The boyfriend?”

“They’re bringing him in for questioning now. I’m going to be questioning him.” It was like she was showing off the fact that she was going to get to do the questioning.

“You’re bringing him in just on that?” Jon asked, knowing there had to be more.

“Well, I also went this morning back to the building to confirm that an old man who lives below Margaery heard her voice and a male voice loudly discussing something that morning.”

“Does that automatically make it the boyfriend?” He knew he was riling Dany up by asking several questions, but he couldn’t stop himself. It was somewhat enjoyable seeing her getting annoyed.

“Are you just trying to get as much information as you can out of me?” She asked with a vexed groan.  

“I just thought we were helping each other.” He smirked as she tilted her head and widened her eyes as if to say ‘ _really?_ ’

“Yeah, so where is your help then?”

It was a good point.

He knew he had the crumpled list of suspects, but it pretty much consisted of the boyfriend he was sure and this was the angle Dany was taking anyway.

“The family want to see me this afternoon for a talk, so you’ll get some help.” Dany smirked, looking happy once more with the agreement they had made.

“Okay, so I’ll tell you… There was a glass at the scene of the crime. It had been assumed it was her DNA on it, but there’s a mixture… two people drinking from the same glass – we obviously need to test Joffrey for it.”

Dany looked so proud of herself that Jon had to give an encouraging nod instead of smacking her down. He couldn’t intentionally say or do anything horrible to her, even if he knew that was the normal reaction people would have.

“That is a good reason to get someone in.” Jon shrugged. “Probably better than if I had to interrogate him… Might punch him or something.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.”

She still smirked as she said that, but he knew the one and only time he had punched someone in the face was the night they got together and had pretty remarkable sex... multiple times. She couldn’t keep her hands off of him.

It was like the thought crossed their mind at the same time, as he scratched the back of his head and she began to grow rosy.

He stared at her for the longest time. The playfulness in her voice got him falling back right to the beginning of them. He would have done anything to have that back, but it wasn’t the time, it would never be the time for them now.

Dany stopped smirking and her lips parted, as if she sensed the seriousness of this moment along with Jon. She stood up straighter and Jon could have easily moved in closer to taste her lips one more time, in fact his body was gravitating towards her.

The file she was holding fell to the ground and any moment they had there had vanished, like it should have done. Jon practically jumped backwards, as Dany bent down to pick up her file.

“I…” She looked from his face to the floor. “I better get ready for questioning.”

“I’ve got to go and be productive too.” She gave a rather pained smile and he imitated it, but he didn’t need to imitate that pain as that filled him up now – pain on pain on pain.

“Okay, I’ll let you know how it goes.” She couldn't leave a conversation that was uncomfortable without throwing a strange witty comment in, so she threw her hands to the side and continued to speak. "Rather sensational to get enough to bring a lead suspect in not even 48 hours after the crime, huh?" 

Jon nodded slowly, remembering something rather significant that he had to definitely confirm. He turned away from her to leave.

He didn’t know if she still stood there, staring after him, because that was the best thing about turning away from someone – you didn’t need to see the pain you left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiii, i'm not sure how i feel about this chapter - i always find jon chapters hella hard, but it was necessary!   
> i'm super excited for the next chapter tho.   
> sneak peek: flashbacks will look at dany's first birthday with Jon, so you can imagine that this has some importance to the present ;)   
> leave reviews and kudos. nothing makes me happier in fic writing than having a review with opinions and theories.   
> lots of love, rachel xoxo


	6. Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'And now we're saying bye, bye, bye,   
> I was nineteen   
> \--------  
> I was yours, right?'
> 
> -Nineteen, Tegan and Sara (but the Hayley Williams cover for this fic !!)

“When was the last time you saw Margaery Tyrell?”

An invisible clock seemed to be ticking loudly as they waited for each answer from Joffrey’s mouth.

He shook his head and shrugged in a manner that suggested he didn’t give two shits about what had happened to her. Daenerys felt an itch to snap at him that she repressed very well.

“Like I said, it was a few days back. We had a fight and we broke up. It happens a lot.”

DI Greyjoy cleared her throat, as Joffrey provided with the same vague answer that he had been giving before that.

“We need a more specific answer. Please.”

Joffrey deflated air from his lungs as if they were asking him to think back to something that happened a month ago and not a few days ago.

Daenerys narrowed her eyes.

“Was it a physical fight?”

Joffrey readjusted his jaw and stared hard at Daenerys.

“What?”

“Well, you said you had a fight and I just wanted to determine the nature of your fight.” Joffrey moved his eyes between Daenerys and Greyjoy, looking for once a little jolted by the questioning. 

“No.” He shook his head once as if that settled it.

Greyjoy cleared her throat.

“So, _specifically_ , when did you last see her?”

Joffrey scrunched up his face, finally seeming to think through his answers instead of just waiting out the time.  

“Uh… It would’ve been Saturday. We argued, we broke up and I went out with mates - the usual.” He looked between the two ladies and Daenerys gave her best unimpressed expression in the hopes he would know that wasn’t enough information. “We usually got back together within a week.”

“So you didn’t hear from her after that?”

He shrugged again.

“I think her phone got stolen.” Daenerys eyed Greyjoy at that, trying to suss out if she knew about that fact or if Daenerys was the only one in the dark in regards to that. “Besides one of us would usually just turn up at the other’s house then we’d have se-,”

“Okay.” Daenerys came in swiftly, not afraid to interrupt and piss off this Joffrey. “Where were you the evening of Sunday, 8th April?”

Joffrey leaned back in his chair. Daenerys did not take her eyes off him, as she knew he was momentarily flummoxed.

“This is the most basic question a major suspect gets asked.” Daenerys said slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “You did realise you would be a major suspect, right?”

Joffrey chewed on the inside of his cheek, making it crystal clear he didn’t have a very good alibi, but Daenerys pushed it further.

“This is the part where you give an amazing alibi.” She folded her arms across her chest, giving Joffrey a very satisfied smile.

His eyes were very quickly welling up at the prospect that he could now be in trouble. That gave Daenerys some sort of kick – seeing weak men display their weakness was always extremely entertaining.

“I was at home.”

Daenerys suppressed an even wider smile from forming.

“Do you have someone who can corroborate that?” Greyjoy asked, possibly not reveling in this as much as Daenerys was.

“My… My Mum.” He supplied, not seeming nearly as confident as before. “But… Margaery… she’s not dead.”

Daenerys became more alert and her eyes narrowed.

“Do you know she’s not dead then?”

Joffrey’s eyes widened and he shook his head wildly, his eyes now clearly watering.

“No, no, I mean, she can’t be dead…” He groaned loudly and balled a hand into a fist, slamming it against the table. “I want a fucking lawyer!”

Daenerys and Greyjoy turned to each other with the same entertained expression, as Joffrey shouted out his line as if he was in a movie.

The door opened and Tarth was poking her head in with a very stern look on her face, but Daenerys felt like she possibly always had that look on her face.

“DI Targaryen, come here.”

Daenerys hopped up and walked out the door with eagerness, knowing this must mean some new information had come through.

She shut the door behind her and nodded her head at Tarth to show she was ready to hear what it was.

“We have to let him leave.”

Daenerys opened her mouth in disgust.

“What? Are you fucking serious?” Tarth didn’t say anything, but yes, she looked extremely serious. Daenerys waved her hands around wildly to express her frustration. “But… he’s got a shoddy alibi and the… the glass?”

“We’ve had his Mum in the other interview room, Cersei, she’s given very exact timings for his whereabouts on the day – she’s his alibi.” Tarth exhaled deeply. “We won’t have results for DNA for another day. Let this one go.”

“Fuck! I just got him crying and everything!” Daenerys ran her hands through her hair, before realising Tarth hadn’t changed her expression. “Come on, it was impressive!”

“You’ve been in there over an hour.”

“Yeah, well, he was slow to start speaking.” Daenerys sulkily admitted. She waved a hand. “Fine, fine, but my ego really can’t take going in and telling him myself.”

Tarth wordlessly opened the door and entered herself.

Daenerys frowned heavily and leaned against the wall, hitting her head on it silently before realising sulking at how that hurt a little bit. Everyone else at the station seemed to be walking around with importance or urgency, but Daenerys didn’t feel all too important in that moment.

She got her phone out of her pocket and due to it being silent, she had missed a call from Missandei and – her heart fluttered as she spotted this – Jon.

Their last conversation had been just slightly strange. It felt like they were about to kiss and that wouldn’t have been the worst thing to happen… Oh God, just over a day ago this would have never been something that could happen again and now here she was able to get in touching distance of him.

_Be professional, be professional, be professional._

She stomped down the corridor and called back Jon before she could change her mind. It rang twice before he picked up; she wondered if he had been simply waiting for her to ring back. After that wondering, she firmly decided she needed to get her ego in check.

“You need to come to the Tyrells’ house. Now.” His voice was gruff and urgent, it reminded her of being in bed with him or against walls or against a tree like that one summer they had –

She shook her head.

“Hello to you too.” She tried to get back into work mode as quickly as possible. “A new development?”

“Yeah, I think you should come by yourself.” She stopped walking.

It wasn’t just a new development, it was a _big_ development.

“Send me the address.”

She hung up on him and headed straight for the temporary desk she had been assigned. She grabbed her coat and shoved anything that might be important into her bag, before dashing towards the exit. Waters appeared out of a corridor as she tried to leave and she figured she should probably tell _someone_ that she was leaving.

“Waters, shit about the Joffrey situation, isn’t it?” She asked, slightly out of breath. Waters didn’t reply, just stared at her and so she steamrollered on. “Well, I need to get some food and coffee and generally a new perspective on this whole thing, so I’ll be – why are you looking at me like that?”

Her eyes narrowed and Waters shook his head as if he had been in a trance.

“Like what? I’m not looking at you in any sort of way.”

“Believable.” She continued to frown. “Anyway, I’ll see you later.”

She exited the building and looked down at her phone again to confirm that Jon had sent her the address already.

 

* * *

 

“Wow, that’s a fancy ol’ house, isn’t it?”

Daenerys stared out of the taxi window and saw that they were literally driving down a driveway to approach the house where the Tyrells lived. They had a couple of acres of greenery to themselves and she wouldn’t be surprised if they had their own stables behind their house.

It reminded her of her own family home – Jon probably felt just as uncomfortable here as he did there.

“Yeah, it is.” They pulled outside the door to the house and Daenerys noted the falling apart car that was messily parked outside the house.

How the hell did Jon still have that car? How was it still functioning? How could she still remember every single time they had intense sessions in the back of that car?

“You okay, love?” Daenerys blinked out of her reverie, embarrassed to the point of silence, as if the driver knew what was going on in her head. She hurriedly handed the money owed plus a tip over to the driver and got out of the taxi.

With a deep breath, she took the impossibly long walk over to the front door, not looking at the car again.

The door opened before she even got close enough to knock at it and it was Jon standing there with a sullen expression. Daenerys froze despite herself and uselessly laughed and pointed at the car.

“You didn’t seem in a fit enough state to drive earlier.” She didn’t know why she had to attempt to make him look worse to her, but it was what everyone did with exes, wasn’t it? Point out if they seemed in a rough state when you were getting shit done? To point out that you were winning post-break-up.

It wasn’t fair of her at all.

“I went back home and picked it up.” He replied, unsmiling. He stepped back in the house. “Come on then.”

She hurried towards the door and followed Jon through the house towards an unannounced room.

“What’s going on?” She asked, even though she knew there would be no response and that she would get her answer soon enough.

The soon enough came quicker than anticipated though, as even though the house was gigantic and regal, they entered the desired living room very quickly. Before her was sat a much older lady who demanded respect with every ounce of her being.

“Ah, you must be Daenerys – the lady we’ve been waiting for?” The older lady must be Olenna. She was the grandma of Margaery and seemed to be the one who was doing all the questioning on behalf of the Tyrells from what she had heard from both the police and Jon. She had expected the whole family there though and not just this one lady.

Jon nodded as Daenerys didn’t react at all.

“I’m Olenna Tyrell. Please take a seat, have some lemon cake.” Daenerys shook her head before stopping herself.

“Thank you, but I’d like to hear what this seemingly dramatic news is.” She looked between Jon and Olenna, quietly demanding they get to it. Olenna simply stared at Jon and raised her eyebrows.

“Very well then.” She cleared her throat, picking up her teacup off her elegant little side table. “Margaery isn’t dead.”

Olenna took a little sip from her dainty cup. 

Daenerys was on the verge of releasing a gasp. She looked quickly again between Jon and Olenna before waving a hand wildly.

“Well, I know you want to have hope and evidence is suggesting that she might not be dea-,”

“Oh, she’s not. She had plans to run away and stay with a friend in Oxford or something like that.” She waved a hand rather dismissively and took yet another sip of her tea.

Daenerys let out a confused little groan.

“I think I should sit down.”

“And have a slice of cake. It’s rather good, isn’t it, Jon?”

Daenerys didn’t turn around to see if Jon nodded or reacted at all to that question.

“So… Hold on, she set up the scene herself? You’ve… you’ve spoken to her?” The questions couldn’t leave her fast enough.

“Well, I didn’t know she was going to be quite so dramatic by setting all that up, but it looks that way. She just told us she needed to get away from Joffrey and that we had to pretend she was missing, so that she would never have to see him again.”

Daenerys gave a disbelieving laugh.

“So again, you’ve spoken to her?”

“No, but her phone was stolen the day before.” Again with the missing phone? She wasn’t given a second to explore that though. “She said she would probably wait a week or so to reach out to us.”

“Why are you telling us now then?”

Olenna let out a delicate giggle, giving a glance in Jon’s direction.

“I felt a little bad for the bastard. He’s going on this wild goose chase hoping to find her… And if he did? Joffrey would find out and she would not be safe if he found out.” She looked at Daenerys with hard and determined eyes. “It’s better she doesn’t get found.”

“I said she had to tell you as well.” Daenerys looked over her shoulder, her eyes meeting Jon’s for a moment too long for her face not to soften.

“I think it’s better that we let this quietly fade out, so as not to raise suspicion.”

“How am I supposed to believe you? You could be covering something up here.” Olenna paused, putting a hand to her chin.

“If Margaery was actually missing, then I would stop at nothing to get her back her safe. Everything is telling you this is a set-up, isn’t it?”

Everything was telling her that, but Daenerys didn’t believe it. She wasn’t sure she could ever believe that.

“Well, you realise I will have to go and report this back to my team.” Olenna gave Daenerys a sharp look again and so she felt it best to clarify what she meant. “However it will be seen as a complete waste of police time, so they wouldn’t want it to publicly get out to the news. It’ll fizzle out as an unanswered mystery.”

Silence filled the room as Daenerys remained poised in her contemplative stance. Jon was the one to break it.

“I can drive you back to the station.”

Daenerys stood up; her head still not in the present, apart from knowing that she needed to leave the house as soon as possible. She gave a small smile at Jon and began to follow him towards the door.

“Feel free to take some lemon cake with you, my dear.”

Daenerys slowly turned back toward Olenna. Her eyes latched on Olenna’s face before the very important question formed in her head.

“Was it her brother who helped her leave?”

“Excuse me?”

Daenerys pointed at her, not in an interrogative manner, but as if she was trying to remember what was said earlier.

“Did her brother help set up the scene and then pretend he was the first one to find it?”

Olenna cleared her throat and readjusted herself on the sofa.

“As I said, we weren’t aware how she was going to disappear.”

Daenerys nodded slowly, her chin jutted out as she thought.

“Hmm… interesting.”

She turned on her heel and left the room before Jon.

Her head turned back to the glass on the table, the man on the camera and the argument heard that night.

There were still unanswered questions.

She didn’t stop walking until she got to the passenger door of the car. Thankfully her head was so busy with thoughts that she couldn’t turn back to the memories she had of being in the car.

Jon was a few seconds behind her, silently opening the car doors for her to get in.

She was extremely composed until she sat down and had done up her seatbelt. She let her head drop forward and rub the sides of her head with her hands.

“Are you okay?” Jon softly said.

She flung her head back up and wildly turned towards Jon.

“Are you?” Her voice went off like a bang. “This is your case too. Aren’t you losing money from it?”

Jon didn’t seem surprised at her outburst; in fact he was insanely calm. He let out a short laugh.

“I’m getting a nice payoff for it, so… I’ll survive.” The humour left his face and he looked into Daenerys’ eyes, searching for something. “Are you okay?”

“I’m probably going to be sent back to London now. I really thought I was getting another chance to find this killer, but…”

She shrugged and turned back in her seat, away from Jon. That was far too much emotion for one day.

“I’ve got something for you.” Daenerys could see out of the corner of her eye that Jon was reaching in the back of his car for something, but she refused to turn around. “I remembered it was your birthday tomorrow and now that you might be leaving… Here.”

She looked down at his hands that were holding out a tiny wrapped present.

Her voice was stuck somewhere in her body. What could she say to that?

How dare he be so sweet and caring despite what she did to him. How could he? Who would ever do that?

She reached out and carefully took the soft present from his hand. She stared at it in her hand, unable to breathe momentarily.

“Don’t open it till midnight obviously.” His voice choked up in the middle of his sentence, as if he was trying to force out a laugh.

She dared to look up at him then. Her eyes wide as they stared at his face that was so open for the first time since she had been here.

“Do you want a drink?” She wanted to take it back as soon as it left her mouth, because he seemed so taken aback by it. She looked down, words leaving her like vomit. “Or something? I mean, just as I’ll probably be going… We don’t have to…”

“No. No, let’s go for a drink.”

Her eyes lifted to his face and her mouth lifted too, even though she tried not to let it.

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

_April 11 th, 2009_

Dany didn’t wake up at first. She was too deep in her sleep to be woken up by that irritating knocking at the door and the buzzing of her phone. Finally with a groan she pulled off her eye mask and seemed to slowly rise out of her slumber.

She angrily stared at her dorm bedroom door and over to Missandei’s empty bed. She dragged her body out of bed, assuming that perhaps she had forgotten her key to get in. When she opened the door though, it was Jon – her Jon.

“Hello beautiful,” He said as she sleepily smiled at him.

“Am I dreaming?”

“I hope you’d be wearing something nicer in your dreams.”

She looked down at her baggy pyjamas that had dragons on them and her fluffy socks. She frowned.

“It’s cute.” She looked back up at him. “What time is it?”

Jon opened his mouth to say something.

“It’s still dark.” She got to speak first.

Jon opened his mouth again.

“You said you couldn’t see me until the day?” Dany got in there first again.

“Well, this was all a surprise.”

“A surprise?”

Jon sighed and checked his watch as if making a pointed observation.

“It’s two minutes past midnight. It’s officially your birthday.”

She let out an excited giggle and pulled him in close to her for a hug. Her head snuggled on his shoulder as she kissed his throat lightly.

“That is an incredibly sweet thing for you to do.” Jon stroked her hair softly, before he leaned in closer to whisper something absolutely tantalizing to Dany.

“Well, I have a present too.”

Dany stood up sharply and beamed up at him.

“A present? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

She excitedly pulled him into her dorm, leaning in for a kiss with every step into the room he took.

It became a tradition for the next two birthdays for Dany to get presents from Jon at midnight until it wasn’t a tradition anymore.

 

* * *

 

_Present Day_

Daenerys felt the wrapped present in her bag as she watched Jon return from the bar with a drink for each of them. He had asked her this time what she wanted and she asked for a red wine, not keeping up the façade that she still drank rose wine anymore.

Despite everything she had learnt today, her mind was practically consumed with Jon and the birthday present, otherwise she would have had more questions about what had happened. There were so many questions there, but the question of her feelings for Jon seemed to be louder.

She gave a weak smile as Jon put the drink down and she waited for a few seconds before it seemed like an appropriate time to grab the wine and take a gulp from it.

“Thank you.” She said once her nerves had been tackled with the alcohol. “And thank you for the present… I don’t really know what else to say about it.”

“You don’t have to.”

A few moments of silence passed them as they both awkwardly continue to sip on their drinks.

“Oh, did you know Missandei’s pregnant?” She asked, figuring it was easier to talk about other people than to discuss anything relating to them right now.

“Really?”

Jon was smiling and so it encouraged Daenerys to take it further.

“Yes, she told me… uh, yesterday. Probably not many people know yet, so I wouldn’t congratulate them yet – I mean, and then you’d have to say you found out from me and…” She trailed off, not knowing where she was going with that.

“She doesn’t know you’re here?”

Daenerys shook her head.

“No, no… not yet.”

“Uhm… I’m really happy for them anyway. I was supposed to go to their wedding, but I couldn’t in the end – I saw the photos.”

He had seen the photos.

She was the maid of honour. She would have been in half of those photos.

It felt somewhat unfair to her that he had seen some photos of her and yet she hadn’t seen anything of him since they broke up. He was off the map for her, but he was able to see her at her best friend’s wedding.

“It was great – they’re still the best couple.”

Why did she have to say that? She wanted to kick herself. Her and Jon used to be what she thought was the ‘best’ couple, so what… she was punishing herself now with the fact that they could have been married or had a baby together? 

This whole thing was a punishment though. To sit with your ex and have a drink, pretending everything is fine when it was so far from it.

“Sam’s getting married soon actually.”

“What? Really?”

She forgot for a second that not being in Jon’s life all this time also meant not being in Sam’s life too, so she shouldn’t have responded so excitedly.

“Yeah, in three weeks. I’m the best man.”

“Obviously,” Daenerys said with a soft smile. “Who’s the lucky girl then?”

Sam was one of her closest friends when she was with Jon and she just cut him out of her life when things ended with Jon, because that was the easiest thing to do, but now she had to deal with the ball of guilt that was bubbling in her stomach as she asked about his life.

This was how things had to have been, but oh, how she wished she could have still called him a best friend too.

“A girl named Gilly.”

Daenerys smiled, as there was nothing left to say about that. She was happy he had found love again with someone who wanted to marry him, but saying any of that would sound hollow as she never reached out to him.

“Robb’s married too and expecting a baby.”

Oh, great… Jon wanted to talk about more people she had to cut out of her life since they ended things.

“He’s a miraculous male who managed to get himself pregnant?”

“His wife figured that part out for him.”

They exchanged a small laugh, but Daenerys knew she would have to ask about the rest of his family now as well otherwise it looked completely bad and it wasn’t like she didn’t care. The problem was that she never stopped caring about anything to do with him.

“How’s the rest of your family? Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon, your parents – tell me everything!”

She thought she was doing a great job at hiding her sadness.

“They’re all great, yeah, really great. Sansa and Arya are at university, Bran and Rickon are still at school, my parents are still, you know, my parents.”

“University? Oh, wow… it’s been that long.”

She said it like she was talking about a song that came out ten years ago or an old fashion trend, because she didn’t have a right to be as sad about it as she was. She had always loved Jon’s family and they became her family too, but there couldn’t have been a way for her to keep being a part of that family.

“I mean it’s been a long time, like six or seven years -,”

“Six years.”

In fact it had been six years, three months, two weeks and six days, but that level of detail was something for Daenerys to keep to herself.

Jon shrugged, as if he never thought about how long they hadn’t seen each other for.

She let out a sigh and continued to take giant sips of her wine.

“How are your family?”

Daenerys glanced up in shock at the question. He was definitely not asking that because he cared and so it threw her. She didn’t care to answer it either and so she raised an eyebrow, held his stare for a moment and then delivered a response.

“They’re fine.”

They stared at each other for a long time, holding the other’s stare. She was sussing out who would be the first to ask some sort of useless question about how the other one lived and she felt like Jon was doing the same.

“You’re a Detective Inspector, right? I always knew you would go far.”

So Jon went first.

“That almost sounds sarcastic.”

“It’s not. You’ve always been ambitious, so I always knew you would go far.” The way he said it irritated Daenerys, like he despised her for being at the level she was at, but she also didn’t blame him for it.

“Well, I work hard and I have no life outside of it, so it’s all worth it.” She replied with a self-deprecating laugh just in case he was being sarcastic with what he said before.

“So you’re not in a relationship then?”

It was so strange how she went from finding him irritating a second before to now have her heart thudding against her chest as he asked that question.

Did he care? Did it make a difference to their situation if he did care or did it just make the situation sadder? They had their chance already and they had fucked it up, they weren’t going to have another one, were they?

She bit down on her bottom lip, wanting her answer to make a difference.

“No.” She started to smile, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear as she examined his physical response to her reply.

He nodded his head once.

That was so very Jon Snow.

She internally growled.

“Well, are you?” The question was said with such irritation that Jon looked surprised at it even though it was the most expected question after his one.

She held her breath as she waited for his response. This was the most important answer he would ever give her. She wanted to hope, but she knew… somewhere deep down that he must belong to someone else now.

“No,” He shook his head, as if it required more thought.

Her heart was beating fast and her mouth opened to say something, anything.

“Are you getting another drink, because I’m only having the one?”

Daenerys frowned and looked down at her almost finished wine. She hadn’t realised she was drinking it that fast. Jon was almost done with his as well.

She didn’t want this to be the end of their conversation, because it might be the last time she ever got to talk to him.

“I’m hungry, are you hungry?”

The words tumbled out of her in a rush, showing her desperation.

“I guess I could eat something – what did you want?”

She thought about it for a second and then her eyes lit up with excitement.

“You know what my favourite thing is after a drink?”

 

* * *

 

“Okay, I need ketchup, garlic mayo and BBQ sauce all over the chips.” Daenerys carefully explained to the kebab worker, as her eyes lovingly stared at her chip barm getting prepared. “Oh, and please don’t forget the vinegar.”

She smiled sweetly and looked over at Jon who was staring at her in either a mixture of wonder or disgust.

“That’s disgusting.” Jon commented with a stern shake of his head.

So he was probably staring at her in disgust, but he was still staring at her.

“Thank you.”

She took the chip barm from him and went to take a seat in the very empty takeaway place they were in. Jon came over empty-handed.

“I thought you said you were hungry too?”

“Something put me off my meal.”

Daenerys ignored his comment.

“Do you know how uncommon the chip barm/butty/sandwich – whatever it is – is in London?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Daenerys grinned, picking up her messy sandwich and taking a giant bite from it.

“This is extremely disgusting.”

“This is extremely satisfying.”

Jon let out a laugh and shook his head, but it soon stopped as he pointed at his lip.

“You’ve got a little something…”

Despite herself she pretended she had no idea what he could possibly be talking about and leaned in slightly waving at her face.

“A something what?”

“Just here.” Jon wiped at his own mouth to show her where it was.

She purposefully wiped at the wrong side and leaned in further in the hopes that he would touch her mouth again. She was greedy for the touch.

“Never mind.” Jon simply said, leaning away from her. Daenerys froze in disappointment, taking a napkin and wiping roughly at her face.

She felt incredibly stupid and needed to say something, anything, in order to remove the embarrassment off herself.

“I don’t think the thing with Margaery is done. Do you?” She took another messy bite of her food after asking this and Jon didn’t watch in amusement this time, he looked thoughtful for a second, but then everything stopped.

“Not my job to care.”

“Because your client told you not to chase a missing girl? The thing you definitely should be doing in this case?” She asked, wiping at her mouth in the most inelegant manner. “Well, it’s my job and I don’t want to go back to London thinking that there was more to be done.”

“Don’t go back then.”

It sounded like a challenge.

It sounded like he was reminding her that she left once, she would probably leave again.

It also sounded like he didn’t care whether she stayed or go.

She tried her hardest to look stone cold, to not look like he broke her heart with that comment, but he did.

She couldn’t believe she needed to change the subject again, that she was the one who had to lead this conversation, to drag it out so it wouldn’t end.

“Where do you live now?” This was also a stupid question, because she remembered that they broke up when they had lived together, so she let out a laugh like it was a big joke. “I can imagine you and Ghost in a cottage with a big garden and -,”

Jon’s face fell and so Daenerys stopped her word vomit. Her eyes grew big and she dropped her chip sandwich to its container.

“Ghost passed away, Dany, about two years ago.”

She had been trying so hard for him not to see how sad she was about all the things she had missed since they broke up, but she couldn’t pretend anymore. She let out a little sigh that she always makes before she cries and her face crumpled up until she couldn’t see anymore.

“Woah, what the hell is going on?” Jon asked, sounding rather perplexed at the now almost crying Daenerys.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” She said, waving her hand at him, unknowingly waving his hand away from consoling her. She got her ketchup stained napkin and quickly dabbed at her eyes, not knowing whether she was actually crying or just on the verge of it. “I just loved Ghost and I didn’t even think -,”

“He had a long and happy life.”

“Well, shut up with that bullshit.” She said, sounding snotty and gross. “You fucking loved him with your whole heart, so you must be sad too.”

“Yeah.” He exhaled slowly. “Yeah, I am.”

They stared at each other with matching sad eyes and Jon tentatively reached out with one hand to wipe at the corner of her mouth.

It was probably the least sexy moment of her life, but it also made her want to reach back and make sad love to Jon on the gross kebab table.

“Maybe we should get you home now.”

His hand was still hovering near her mouth and she didn’t want to think anymore. She just wanted his body and hers together. She didn’t care how much it might hurt in the morning.

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

They didn’t say anything in the drive to her place. They didn’t need to fill the silence with words about what they had missed out on.

The only sound was google navigation telling Jon when to make turns.

Daenerys opened the door to her temporary flat and made a grand sweeping gesture with her hand to show it off.

“So this is my paid for accommodation.” She soon stopped the big and fake grin she was giving him, as she noticed Jon was staring at her hard. He shut the door behind him and continued to stare. She got a little uneasy and had to look away.

“You’re so different now, you know?” She looked back up with a surprised crinkle of her eyebrows. Jon briefly smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah, you’re more fucking determined.”

“Is that possible?” She laughed.

“Yeah, you’re more serious and almost sad.”

There was a pause, as she considered denying it, but what was the point? She was sad and he seemed it too.

“You seem sadder too.” She didn’t want it to feel like she was criticising him, so she continued on. “Maybe it’s just something that happens to adults.” 

“Maybe.”

“You’re different too.”

“What’s changed? Apart from being sadder?”

Daenerys debated telling him, but she realized it would complicate things far too much.

“I don’t think I should say.”

“Say it.”

She took a deep breath and looked him dead in the eye as she said the words that would mean they couldn’t pretend anymore that their history wasn’t as deep as it was.

“You don’t love me anymore. The Jon I knew loved me and this Jon doesn’t.”

She didn’t know if she wanted a response, because she didn’t know if she could take it. Jon blinked, his eyes big pools of actual palpable emotion and Daenerys swam in it.

“I don’t think I could ever stop loving you.”

Daenerys didn’t need to hear another word. Their eyes didn’t leave the others’ until Daenerys dipped her eyeline hungrily to his mouth. She delicately stepped forward and pressed her lips against his. She didn’t move them or put any effort into the kiss, because she wanted to make sure he felt the same as she did in this very moment.

Everything hurt.

Her lips hurt from the ecstasy of being reunited with his, her head hurt from trying to figure out what was between them now and her heart hurt from how much this could break her if he pulled away.

He didn’t though.

His arms encapsulated her and brought her right to him. His lips took hers in and she could practically feel him relax and tense all at the same time due to the sensation of this reunion. Her body was doing the same. They hungrily kissed each other, like they wouldn’t get another chance.

She let out a moan and she wished she stayed quiet.

And then his face was off hers. He was panting hard and heavy, his hands gripping her arms, as he stared at her face. He was staring so hard that it was like he was searching for an answer to an unspoken question.  

“If I could stop, then I would.”

Her eyes pricked with hurt at the displeasure in his voice. Of course she agreed. How much easier would it be if she didn’t love him anymore?

“I’m sorry.”  Daenerys choked out her reply, the force of words causing a tear to be released from one of her eyes. She saw Jon following it cascading down her cheek. There was no denying her tears now. He released her arms and silently left her apartment.

As soon as the door shut, she roughly wiped at her face, but it was too late – she had started the tears now.

She stared at the closed door for what felt like an eternity, but must have only been a few minutes. There was only one thing she could do now that she was crying, because she didn’t want to start crying again later on.

She opened her present from him.

What stared back at her was the tiniest cuddly toy dragon that she thought she had lost all those years ago.

She let out a strange groan from her crying and pressed the dragon against her.

How could Jon be so cruel?

She knew the answer already though – he was so cruel, because of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is incredibly late, but hopefully you like this chapter as much as I do! There will be some lighter moments coming up soon, so don't panic !!
> 
> Significance of the little cuddly dragon will be explained next chapter and also another Stark family member will be coming into play.   
> -Rachel xoxo


	7. Under The Table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'It already started  
> I tried to stop it but I already know  
> You are something I should do without, but I won't  
> I'm under the table'
> 
> \- Under the Table, BANKS (expect this fic to be solely BANKS chapters tbh)
> 
>  
> 
> i'm so sorry

_1 st May, 2009_

Dany gave a slight pout of her lips as she stared up at the warm looking family home that belonged to Jon Snow. She had managed to put off meeting his family for the whole almost four months of their relationship, she had put off a lot of things that you were supposed to do in a relationship.

She wasn’t quite sure why she agreed to do it now at all, because really she should just avoid that responsibility forever.

And if she did that then she wouldn’t be shitting it in his car.

A gasp escaped her as Jon’s hand grasped at hers.

“You okay?”

She smiled and gave a miniscule nod of her head.

“I’m excited to see Ghost again.” She said, almost honestly. Jon had brought Ghost out to go on walks with him and Dany. She always teased Jon that she only dated Jon for Ghost, so his exaggerated sigh wasn’t an unexpected reaction from him.

“Let’s not go down that road again… What I had asked was if you’re okay?”

“Of course. What would be terrifying about meeting your family?” Her voice hit high octaves with the level of sarcasm she was reaching

“Exactly – there’s nothing terrifying about it.”

Dany glared at Jon. He was being serious.

“Yeah,” She continued on, being completely sarcastic. “Especially as I’m sure you haven’t been gushing about me for months on end and they’re all wondering why your bitch of a girlfriend hasn’t wanted to meet them.”

Jon furrowed his brow, clearly getting lost in Dany’s signature long and cutting sentences.

“Yeah…”

Dany let go of his hand, so she could poke him hard.

“You’re saying you haven’t been gushing about me?”

“I don’t really gush.”

“I’m worth gushing over,” She stated with an overly confident grin and Jon looked like he was thinking hard about it.

“Hmm… I mean, I guess -,”

She play slapped him on the arm and they both fell into laughter.

“Okay, okay, I’ve _talked_ about you a bit, but I haven’t gushed. Not once.” Dany smiled with a shrug to show him that she didn’t believe that. “But to calm your nerves -,”

“I’m not nervous! I don’t get nervous, just like you don’t gush.”

“Okay… Anyway I’ve got you something.” She raised her eyebrows quizzically with a beaming smile. He reached into his jean pocket and pulled out a tiny cuddly orange dragon.

“So yeah, I just thought -,”

“Because of my dragon pajamas?”

“You generally like dragons though, right?” Dany eagerly nodded. “So I thought this could be your support for tonight.”

“You’re not going to support me?”

“Yeah, of course, but what if I go to the toilet? Or I get sick of you?” Dany silently threatened to hit his arm again and Jon defensively held his hands up. “Point is…this will be there all the time.”

“My own little guardian angel?” Dany murmured, a smile across her face. “ _God_ , you’re extremely sweet.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Jon gave a bemused laugh and Dany sighed quietly.

“It is! You’ve been so good and sweet, whereas I…” She sighed again. “Look I’ve been in love before and it hurt, but I guess I just knew if I let you in it would hurt more -,”

“I won’t hurt you.”

He was so quick to respond and so serious as he said it that Dany forgot everything else she wanted to say and so she had to just come out with the one truth, the one thing that mattered.

“I love you, Jon Snow.”

They didn’t leave Jon’s car for a further ten minutes, because they were so wrapped up in their love and happiness. When did they go in, Dany fell in love again; his family were open and kind where hers were closed and cold.

His parents asked enough questions to make her feel at home, but not too many that it was ever invasive. They loved each other in a way that Dany hoped she loved Jon in thirty years’ time.

Robb, Jon’s older brother by just over a year, famously stated when she walked in, ‘now that you’ve met me; you can confirm who the better looking one is.’

Bran, seven at the time, got the whole family involved in an after-dinner game of hide and seek in their large garden. Dany lost, which caused uproar on her part, as she had no idea where the best hiding places were.

Rickon, a mere five at the time, had a lot of knowledge on dinosaurs – close enough to dragons for Dany to want to know everything he knew.

Arya, almost ten, was a little firecracker of a girl. She ran around and wanted to have everyone’s full attention at every moment. Her ‘speaking before thinking’ attitude really went straight to Dany’s heart and she stayed there.

And Sansa, twelve, was possibly Dany’s favourite, although she could never possibly show that. Sansa idolized Dany and wanted makeovers, advice and clothes from her. She was gentle, yet had a steely nature underneath it all. She felt that they shared similarities from their growing up years and that’s possibly the connection that brought them closer.

* * *

 

_Present Day_

Daenerys stared blankly at Tarth as she shouted somewhat abuse at her.

“- and not one phone call? You couldn’t do that? I’m going to have to ring fucking Jaime now, aren’t -”

“Who is Jaime?” She comically pulled her face into a puzzled expression.

“ _DSU_ Lannister.” She brought a hand to her face and groaned deeply. Daenerys turned to Greyjoy and gave an innocent shrug, like it wasn’t her who was pushing Tarth over the edge.

On the inside Daenerys was freaking out completely, but she was extremely good at pretending she was handling everything just fine.

“I understand that what I did was quite wrong,” She paused for dramatic effect. “But I wanted to find something that would allow me to stay here and finish this… I don’t believe for a second that this is over and I don’t want it to be forgotten.”

Tarth stood up straight and crossed her arms.

“ _And_?” Nothing was said and so Tarth pressed on. “And what have you found?”

Daenerys cleared her throat, knowing that perhaps she would have been able to present something back if she hadn’t been wasting time with her ex the night before.

 “Well, there are a lot of unanswered questions still and -,”

“Right, I don’t give two shits if you stay here or don’t, but London will want you back and after this new information, they’ll want you back _today_.” Daenerys opened her mouth to respond, but Tarth held up one finger. “One hour. One hour to find something that makes your presence worthwhile.”

Daenerys nodded quickly, wanting to show that this would be an incredibly easy task, but it wasn’t.

She was told to come here based on her intel from the past case, but now it was looking like there wasn’t as much relation as anticipated apart from the scene that had been set. Was it really enough of a reason for her to stay?

She only had one hour to answer that question. 

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes into her one hour and Daenerys had only managed to prove there were still many unanswered questions left to be answered, but it didn’t really show that Margaery was in actual danger or that Daenerys’ expertise from the flowers case was of any use to the team.

She stared at her notes again, linking up things that could possibly be related and willing for the answer she needed.

Olenna Tyrell said that Margaery was planning to leave Joffrey – to disappear. Yet nobody had apparently heard from her. This couldn’t be taken as fact.

She was with a friend in Oxford? Could Olenna confirm who the friend was?

Margaery’s phone had been stolen? The day before? Both Olenna and Joffrey stated this… Could it have a link to everything else?

Security footage showed a man turning off the camera. If this was all set up as Olenna said, then this man must have been helping her. Did Margaery’s brother lie about finding the room as it was? Did he help her with it?

And the crime scene… pretty much slated as a set up, but the glass on the table?

Daenerys circled her notes regarding the glass.

“Waters!” She called without looking up, because she knew he had been hovering a moment before.

“Uh… yes, DI Targaryen?”

“Chase forensics about that glass. I _need_ all the results in thirty minutes, okay?”

Waters was not his normal chatty self and just nodded. Daenerys wanted to ask him what the hell was going on, but her phone started ringing.

It could have been anyone wishing her a happy birthday, but she figured that most likely it would be Missandei.

Of course it wasn’t though. Of _course_ it was Jon.

She sighed deeply, considering ignoring the call, but her body reacted against her logic and soon the phone was against her face.

“Unless it’s a matter of life or death, I don’t have time for this.” She snapped, her head filling up with the reminder of the dragon she now had in her bag under the table. Along with all her feelings and reminders of last night, under the table was where it needed to stay.  

“It might be.” His voice was so grave with seriousness that she didn’t say anything else. “I need you at my office… It’s about the case.”

She was able to ignore the rest of his sentence, because all that really mattered was, ‘I need you’; she was willing to do anything for ‘I need you’.

She nodded before remembering that he couldn’t see her.

“Okay.”

Thirty-five minutes.

It would have to be enough time.

 

* * *

 

Thankfully her head was swimming in the idea that she might be pulled off the case and so she was anticipating seeing Jon about the case and not about _just_ seeing Jon. Her lips still pricked from the night before.

She practically ran up the steps this time to get into his dusty little office and walked through the door without knocking, ready to be completely professional and not glance at his lips once, but she was thrown from any professional words as she wasn’t just met with Jon.

She was stopped in her tracks in the doorway, physically unable to take a step further. Her mouth opened in a perfect ‘O’ before she managed to get a single word out.

“ _Sansa_ …”

She was older now. She was an actual fully grown woman and had gotten more delicate and beautiful with that time.

More beautiful despite the fact she currently sat at the desk with a tissue dabbing at her watering and red eyes, as Jon stood over her with an arm snaked around her shoulders. Daenerys moved her eyes between them, waiting for the image to make sense to her. How did this have anything to do with the case?

Sansa looked up and despite the fact that she should be surprised by Daenerys walking in, she just stared with empty eyes before turning back to sniff into her tissue, whilst Jon moved away and motioned with his head towards his office. Daenerys followed him, her eyes still glued to Sansa’s crying self.

Nothing in the office jumped out in that moment, she paid little attention to the surroundings, but she waited in the narrow hallway for him to speak. Jon shut the door, staying close enough to speak and to remind Daenerys of lips upon lips.

“What’s going on? I thought Sansa wasn’t in Manchester…” She spoke in an urgent whisper and Jon looked back in the direction of Sansa before replying. He looked worried.

“She got here this morning; our family doesn’t know she’s here.” He shook his head.

“Why is she so upset?” She didn’t really have a right to ask anything about his family now, but maybe it was the reason she was asked to come over. Jon didn’t answer her question directly.

“I didn’t know she knew Margaery.”

Confusion left Daenerys’s face. She was suddenly alert and figuring it out quickly in her head what this all meant.

“Sansa is the friend that Margaery was supposed to meet, right? In Oxford?”

Jon nodded slowly, looking almost surprised at how fast she got to that conclusion.

“Well, Cambridge… Olenna got that part wrong.”

Daenerys leaned back against the wall and studied Jon’s face. She didn’t need him to continue on for her to know what this meant.

“She didn’t turn up.”

Jon nodded slowly.

“Uh…I need you to help Sansa with what she should do. I told her you’d help.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Those words again, ‘I need you…’

“You seem to be needing me a lot today.” Jon stared at his feet, avoiding her studying gaze.

“I can’t really help her – this isn’t my case any-,”

Daenerys snorted with pure bemusement.

“This changes _everything_. It’s still your case.” She pushed past Jon in the small hallway with a raised eyebrow and got out the door to approach the teary-eyed Sansa.

She knew how she was supposed to deal with emotional interviewees and so she approached slowly and carefully.

“Hey Sansa,” She said softly, kneeling down in front of Sansa, so that they were at the same level. Sansa sniffed.

“I waited and then I saw everything that was-,”

“No,” Daenerys softly broke her off, taking one of Sansa’s hands in her own. It would have felt weird if she was seeing Sansa as her ex’s little sister, but this was serious now. “No, you don’t need to say anything now.”

Sansa nodded, still sniffing and trying to get a hold of her emotions.

“Okay, so Jon will take us to the station and I’ll go in first, then you come in by yourself and go to the desk just by the front, okay?” Daenerys turned her head slightly to see Jon behind her watching the two of them with an unreadable expression – all she could tell was that he was sad. Jon felt whatever his siblings felt, he always had.

“You just need to say you have information about Margaery Tyrell and they’ll take you to an interview room.” She gave Sansa’s hand a little squeeze. “I will do my best to make sure it’s just you and me in there if you want that?”

Sansa gave a little nod again.

“And this is extremely important – don’t mention Jon and pretend you don’t know me… I think that’ll make it complicated?”

She turned her head again to look at Jon. He met her gaze with a stony expression that Daenerys took as confirmation that yes, it would make this all very complicated.

“Are you ready, Sansa?”

She asked it in a whisper and so Sansa returned the whisper.

“I think so.”

She squeezed her hand one more time and then stood up, giving Jon a swift nod to mark that she was ready as well.

 

* * *

 

They travelled in silence and when they parked the car nobody made further movement.

“Right,” Daenerys began, undoing her seatbelt slowly. “I’ll go in now and then if you wait maybe five minutes to come in…”

She reached out to pull the door handle, but Jon gently grazed her other hand.

“Thank you.”

She turned to him with big eyes. He was staring at her hard and they stayed like that for maybe a second too long.

“Make sure you stay in the car.” She said as a way to end the conversation.

“I won’t leave until Sansa is back here.”

His care for everyone he loved and the actions he made to prove his care was something that always touched Daenerys; it still touched her.

She left without another word.

It felt like the longest walk to get back to the station, as she wondered if Jon would be looking after her leave or if Sansa ever told Jon that –

She couldn’t think about that day right now.

Upon entering the station, she was immediately startled by Waters.

“Where have you been?” He asked as a greeting. She felt the urgent need to defend herself, but thankfully he just continued speaking. “I’ve got those results.”

She had nearly forgotten about wanting those. She checked her watch and saw she was roughly ten minutes late on her deadline, so continued to walk with a nod to get Waters to follow her.

“And?”

“The DNA doesn’t match the blood we found at the scene.” Daenerys paused in her walk, her eyes moving everywhere as this thought settled on her.

“Does it match Joffrey’s?”

“No…” Daenerys held out her hand to get the hard copy of the results. Waters handed it over and she continued walking. “So that means… someone else had to be there, right?”

Daenerys didn’t reply, as yes, that’s exactly what it meant and it could have been literally anyone, so there was no point confirming the obvious.

“Thank you, Waters.” She stormed over to Tarth’s office, knocking on the door to get a silent response of Tarth motioning her in through the window.

She took a deep breath and went on in.

“You’re late.”

“Only slightly.” Daenerys stated with a savage smile, but she quickly realized she wasn’t in the best position to joke right now. She wordlessly handed over the results that Waters had given her. It would hopefully be enough for now.

“What’s this?” Tarth asked, after surveying the results for a few seconds.

“The DNA doesn’t match the blood nor does it match Joffrey’s.”

Tarth sighed and stopped looking at the results.

“So it matches the person who helped her plan the escape.” Daenerys nodded slowly. “It would be great supporting evidence if you had something else.”

Just on cue, Greyjoy came knocking on the door and bursting through.

“Someone’s arrived with information on the Margaery Tyrell case.”

Daenerys looked between Greyjoy and Tarth with her best shocked expression.

 

* * *

 

“Please confirm what the plan was between you and Margaery?”

“Uhm… Like I said,” Sansa’s voice shook every time she spoke. “She said she had a plan to… to leave and then she would stay with me for a bit. We – we were… are friends.”

Daenerys leant against the glass as she watched Greyjoy and Sansa in the interviewing room. She rolled her forehead to the side and looked at Tarth.

“She’s obviously distressed – why is Greyjoy acting like this is an interrogation?” She asked, causing Tarth to look at Daenerys with a cocked eyebrow.

“Because that’s exactly what this is. We don’t know she’s not a suspect yet.” Daenerys let out an irritated sigh.

“I could get more information out of her – why can’t I go in?”

“Like you said, she’s _distressed._ It’s better to keep it one-on-one.” Daenerys let out a grunt that received her a sharp tut. She scowled. 

“Why is it just us two here as well? Waters should really be present for everything.”

Tarth simply shrugged.

“He told me privately that he knows her and so he won’t be involved until we know what she brings to the case.”

Daenerys straightened up, her forehead red and sore from the pressure of the glass against her.

“Is he just out there?” Tarth shrugged.

“Targaryen, why the hell should I care?”

Daenerys’ head was racing. If he knew Sansa, then he must know…

She practically raced for the door.                                                       

“Where the hell are you going in the middle of an interrogation?”

Daenerys turned back only to give her an innocent eyebrow raise along with a scathing statement.

“I’m sure I won’t miss out on anything.” 

She went out into the main office area, eyes searching for Gendry. She had to ask in the most professional manner -

“I’ve heard you know the interviewee? How?”

Or just bluntly.

Waters flinched and looked up from his desk in absolute surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“How do you know the interviewee?”

Waters chewed on his lip and stared at Daenerys with a determined look, which she naturally returned, until he blinked and turned away. She had won the stare-off.

“Similar to the way you know her.”

The words hit her like a ton of bricks.

He knew who she was – perhaps all this time. She felt the air inside of her leave in an instant. How embarrassing it was for him to know who she was all this time.

She turned away for a second and blinked hard, trying to ignore the bitter sensation that was riding through her right now. After she was able to confirm she could ignore it and cover it up with a sarcastic comment, she did just that.

“So you dated Jon Snow as well?”

Gendry looked confused and then shook his head with an irritated laugh.

“No!” He shook his head more. “No, no… I know Arya.”

“You’re with Arya? Or an ex of Arya’s?”

“No, no…” He was shaking his head wildly again. “Arya’s just my friend, my best friend.”

“Oh, so it’s not very similar to the way I know her then?”

Gendry let out a loud groan.

“Anyway I know you were honest about knowing her, but I wasn’t intending on being, so if you can keep…”

“I will.”

Daenerys gave a firm nod, thinking it was time to leave this weird conversation, but curiosity got the better of her.

“Am I really that infamous around the Stark household that even you knew who I was?” She gave a forced laugh and Gendry returned it with a slight shrug.

“I heard about you, but I didn’t know... like this was you. Jon told me and said not to tell anyone you were back.”

The next question that left her wasn’t really a question for Gendry to answer. It was just a thought leaving her.

“Why?”

“There’s always a reason for people keeping people secret, isn’t there?”

She wasn’t sure if Gendry continued talking or not, because she was back on the case once more.

People keeping people secret…

Jon said he didn’t know that Sansa knew Margaery? Sure… But someone in his family would have known that the girl missing was Sansa’s friend, so this wasn’t just forgotten information – it was kept away deliberately; it was a secret.

What was Sansa’s reason for keeping Margaery secret?

“DI Targaryen?”

“Huh?”

Daenerys came back into the room after being in her head and saw Gendry staring at her in confusion once more.

“I have to go back in.”

She stormed back through to the room where Tarth was observing.

“Any update?” Daenerys said, somewhat out of breath due to her sudden excitement.

“No,” Tarth replied through gritted teeth.

“Good. Let me go in there now.” Daenerys was calm, yet extremely confident. She knew that would win Tarth over. “I know how to get through to her.”

Tarth turned her whole body around to look down at Daenerys. It was a slightly intimidating feeling as Tarth was so much taller than little Daenerys, but she kept up her confidence and didn’t let her eyes stray.

“Fine, fine. Take over.”

Daenerys gave a victorious smile and practically strutted over to the next room like a male peacock in heat.

She opened the door slowly, causing both ladies to look up expectantly.

“DI Greyjoy,” She signaled with her head the exit out of the room and for a moment it looked like Greyjoy was going to remain seated, but finally with a heaving breath, she stood up.

Daenerys walked slowly over to where Sansa sat, removing her jacket as she took her own seat opposite Sansa.

“Hi Sansa,” She gave the weakest of smiles to Daenerys and she took a tissue off the table to dab at her face. “I’m DI Targaryen, but you can call me… Dany.”

Her mouth felt hard forming that word. She hadn’t asked anyone to call her that for years, but that was really how Sansa knew her and she needed her to be completely comfortable.

“Okay.”

Daenerys cleared her throat and eyed the glass wall in the room, knowing that Tarth and Greyjoy would be staring hard and most likely cursing her.

She breathed deeply and turned her attention back to Sansa.

“How did you meet Margaery?”

Sansa furrowed her brow in confusion, but then she gave the smallest of smiles as she looked to be thinking about it.

“She does a lot of pageantry stuff and I was considering doing it. A meeting was set up between us, so she could tell me what to expect from it all if I did it. I never ended up doing it, but we became friends after that.”

Daenerys nodded quietly, noting that this was the most Sansa had spoken so far.

“How long ago was this?”

“About a year ago maybe?”

 Daenerys leant forward, creating a façade of not knowing what the final conclusion of this story could be.

“For her to then run away and come to you in Cambridge after only a year… You must have become very close and fast friends?”

Sansa’s eyes seemed to be getting bigger and sadder. She nodded quickly.

“We did…”

“So Joffrey, her family and yours would assume she ran off to stay with you eventually?” Sansa’s face creased even more. Daenerys pushed on in the most tentative way. “Unless nobody really knew about your friendship?”

“No… I -,”

“Nobody knew about your friendship?”

Silence ensued.

“Margaery’s degree is in fine art… I assume she paints and did that beautiful painting of you? Your hair? It’s above her bed.”

Sansa’s head fell.

“I know…”

“Sansa…” She took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn’t get grief for pushing the answers she needed out of her. “Are you and Margaery _just_ friends?”

The words cut through the room and seemed to soak up a silence. Sansa lifted her head and the fact new tears were bursting from her eyes gave her enough of an answer.

“We love each other… She was coming to be with me without Joffrey finding out.” Her voice moved in octaves and could barely be distinguishable as she was crying so much now. “I’m worried he did and – if he found out, Dany… I don’t know what he would have done to her.”

Now that the bottle of secrets had been opened, it was like the words couldn’t stop pouring out of her.

“She had her phone stolen a day or so before. So I don’t have a lot of written messages with her, but… you can have access to it all to see. I spoke to her on the phone and she said someone was helping her leave.” She paused, her face scrunched up. “I don’t think this is what the plan was supposed to look like.”

Daenerys nodded, allowing Sansa to say everything she needed to.

“Do you know who this person could have been?”

“No…” She looked like she was torturing herself to remember something about it. “No, but she organizes everything in her phone, like every little thing she did. Any time she was going to call me or we were spending time together, she’d put ‘feeding the birds’.”

She shrugged, smiling sadly.

Daenerys needed to find that phone or at least get access to something on there.

“Did she ever show an interest in unsolved murder cases at all?”

Sansa snorted in what looked to be complete confusion. That was a fair enough reaction.

“Uh…” Sansa started, as soon as she could see Daenerys was being serious. “No? No, we never discussed that at all.”

“Thank you so much for opening up. This is going to help us.” She tried to get eye contact with Sansa, so that she could see she was telling the truth. “My colleague will help you with getting the messages you had with Margaery, okay?”

Sansa nodded, looking numb to it now. Daenerys returned the nod and went to heave herself up when Sansa’s hand shot out to take hold of Daenerys’s hand.

“Please just find her.” Sansa wasn’t looking up and her voice was incredibly shaky. Daenerys felt a ripple of emotions within her and she tried her best to keep her own voice steady.

“I’m going to do everything I can.”

Sansa released her hand.

Daenerys stared at her for a moment, fighting the deepest urge to stroke her hair and comfort her.

She left out the door, recollecting herself. Greyjoy and Tarth came out the other room and interrupted her though.

“How the fuck did you do that?” Greyjoy asked and Daenerys didn’t have time to give a proper answer, as Tarth spoke next.

“We’ve got ourselves an official missing person’s case.”

She knew then that she would be staying.

 

* * *

 

Daenerys sat in the reception area waiting for Sansa to be done. As soon as she approached along the corridor, Daenerys jumped to her feet.

“Hey, how are you feeling?”

“I’m glad I said all that.” She nodded, avoiding the question, but still giving a suitable answer. “Thank you.”

The words had never sounded as meaningful as they did coming from Sansa in that moment.

“I’ll walk you to the car.” They both exited the building and as they walked, Jon got out of the car.

Daenerys turned her head to Sansa, remembering how much personal information she just provided.

“Do you want Jon to know or…?”

“Jon will have to know. I know he’s helping on this, but my family… I’m not sure I’m ready.”

They reached the car and Jon’s eyes flitted between the girls with obvious concern.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Sansa turned to Daenerys and wordlessly gave her a hug before getting in the back of the car again.

Jon turned to Daenerys and she shrugged, unable to actually say much about that.

“She was incredibly brave and helpful to the case.”

Jon looked at Sansa through the car window, not paying attention to Daenerys anymore.

“So I’ll be staying.” He didn’t turn back around at those words. He really didn’t care. “I know you told Gendry to pretend like he didn’t know who I was.”

That made him look back. He looked like he didn’t know what to say or how Daenerys felt about that.

“Sorry -,”

“It’s understandable. I just wish I knew. You could have told me.”

They stared at each other as if there wasn’t anything left to say, but really there was too much. Anger still brewed in Daenerys.

“It just makes it seem like you wanted him to watch me or… I don’t know; I can’t see why you did that.”

Jon heaved a sigh that was designed to show he was through with what Daenerys was saying. He brought his hands out in front of him as if to sound out every word he said.

“What am I supposed to say to this?”

She turned her gaze from him, deciding there was nothing really for him to say. She didn’t deserve an answer.

“I know I broke your heart, but we broke each other’s.” She looked back up at him and saw the change from frustration to confusion in his eyes. His arms fell limply to his sides.

“What does that mean?”

At the risk of saying too much, she shut her mouth up. She rephrased what she wanted to say before she spoke again.

“It means… that we were in a relationship and both hearts get broken when it ends.”

She stared hard at him, not saying it out loud, but hoping he understood that she was broken after they ended – she was _still_ broken despite her best efforts.

“And if you gave me this as a reminder, then I don’t need it, okay?” She pushed the soft toy hard into his chest until his body jolted and his hands caught the toy. She slipped her hand from under his grasp. “I think about you too much to ever need a reminder.”

And then she turned away, as if she didn’t want him to say anything, as if she wanted it to be all over again.

* * *

 

_1 st August, 2009 _

Dany pushed herself through the distant family friends and relatives who filled out the grand hall. She needed to get out, but someone pulled firmly on her arm.

She caught her breath, as she was pulled into the chest of her brother.

“Dany, darling, you know you can’t sneak out before the annual toast.” Viserys breathed every word onto her face. Dany tried to break free from his grasp, but he struggled against her.

“Viserys, honey, nobody’s going to care about the toast after the scene you’ve caused.” Her words were sharp.

“What scene?” He laughed, his voice full of confusion.

“This one.” She stamped on his foot and kneed him in the crotch before smiling sweetly at him. He finally released her arm from his grip and rushed out the door. 

The rest of the house was relatively quiet and she knew he could be hiding anywhere, but she had a feeling she knew where he would be.

She walked up the stairs and down the corridor to her bedroom. Opening the door, she found Jon sat at the foot of her bed with his prosecco in one hand.

“The five minute tour of my room earlier wasn’t enough for you?”

He gave the briefest of smiles to her. She breathed a sigh of relief and took a seat next to him.

“I just needed a moment.”

“So did I.”

She smiled sadly at him and reached for his free hand to squeeze it. Her head fell against his shoulder.

“I told you,” She started, breathing deeply. “My family isn’t like yours; this was never going to be a fun experience.”

“I don’t mind it.” She felt his hand leave hers and move to stroke her hair. “I just mind how you feel about it.”

“I’m used to it, Jon. I didn’t want to bring you here though… I shouldn’t have -,”

“Stop, stop.” He moved her chin up with his hand and directed her gaze towards him. “I asked you to. I don’t care that every family member has suggested I don’t belong here or the fact that I’ve already been propositioned with money to leave you alone or the fact that your brother is the biggest twat I’ve ever met… I care about you. Nothing else.”

Dany always felt like she could just melt when Jon spoke to her in the quiet moments of just the two of them, but now she had finally melted into a pool of sappiness.

“And if you want to leave right now, we will.”

“How can you be like this even after my family have been so horrible?”

“ _You_ aren’t your family, Dany.”

She moved in closer to give him the lightest of kisses. It was different from how they usually kissed – it was careful, it was sweet and it was her way of saying she loved him completely. She pulled away, but kept her face close to his with her forehead resting against his.

“You’re more my family than they ever will be.” Her face suddenly changed as she remembered something. “I forgot to give you this… It makes no sense to give it to you now if we leave, but…”

She stood up and walked to her dresser, fetching the thing she had forgotten. She turned back around and Jon released a loud laugh at what she held. She giggled too, approaching him once more.

“So… when you’re with my dreadful family and I’m not there, because I’ve gone to the toilet or I’m suffering a breakdown, you have this little guy.”

Jon shook his head, taking the small husky soft toy from Dany’s hands.

“Just like I have my Rhaegal.” She said with a smile, as she spoke of the small dragon toy he got her. “And you.”

“This is the best present I’ve ever received. How can I ever repay you?”

She raised an eyebrow suggestively.

“I think you know how.”

She squealed with delight as he brought her forward and tickled her relentlessly.

 

* * *

 

_Present Day_

Jon turned off the engine and didn’t say a thing. Sansa wasn’t crying anymore, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still upset.

On the drive over she announced what exactly happened in the room with Dany.

“Please don’t tell anyone about… you know, Margaery.” Jon nodded, but Sansa winced as if she said something wrong. “I mean… I’m just a friend to Margaery.”

“I would never, Sansa.”

He leaned over to touch her hand carefully. Her lips curled upwards, but not necessarily signifying a smile.

“Oh…” She started, turning her red-rimmed eyes towards Jon. “Dany was wonderful.”

The words felt so unusual to him. So much time had been spent trying to convince himself that she _wasn’t_ wonderful and now he was supposed to accept this information.

He gave a weak smile.

She _had_ been wonderful today despite what happened the night before.

Had he been too harsh?

Sansa reached out to the door handle, but stopped at the last second.

“There’s something else…” Jon cocked his head to the side, urging her to go on. She sighed. “Before you get angry, I still loved Dany at the time and then too much time had passed for me to bring it up when I realized what it could have meant for you.”

The words that were leaving Sansa sounded like they could justify Jon’s behavior. It could mean she isn’t wonderful and he wasn’t too harsh, so he latched onto them with hungry claws.

“Tell me.”

He must have said it harsher than he meant to as Sansa shut her eyes hard before continuing on.

“I think it was three weeks or a month after she left… She rang me up asking where you were and that she was coming back for you, but wanted it to be a big surprise.” Sansa paused and Jon felt his heart beating wildly.

“No… no, she couldn’t have.”

“I rang her back later saying you were back at our home, not the flat, but… she said she changed her mind and she had made the right decision by leaving.” Jon drove his fingers into the steering wheel making small indentations, like this news was leaving indentations in his heart. “She said not to tell you, or anyone, and that I’d see she was right. I tried saying she was wrong, but she shut me down. That was the last I heard from her until today.”

There was a silence again. Sansa staring at Jon and Jon staring at his steering wheel - neither of them moving.

“I’m so sorry, Jon… I should have said-,”

“Sansa,” His voice sounded weak even to his ears. “It’s not your fault.”

“Are you going to come in?”

He shook his head, but stopped himself and started to nod instead.

“Just give me a minute.”

She left, probably sensing that he needed to be alone in that very moment.

He hit the steering wheel with both of his hands. He thought he was done going back in circles over and over again over the relationship that was Jon and Daenerys, but this new information allowed him to revisit everything again. He could see every moment they had spent together since she left in a new light, because now he knew that – even if it was a split second – she knew they were meant to be together and she should have never left.

What changed her mind back to the cold reality?

What if he rang her during that month? Would she have come back then? Was there more he could have done?

He knew this new information would provide him with sleepless nights.

 

* * *

 

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” Daenerys flopped down on the sofa with a smile on her face as she listened to Missandei try and sing to her. “Happy birthday to the original D, happy birthday to you!”

She lengthened out the final note and Daenerys let out a pained noise as if it was the worst thing she had ever heard.

“Let’s hope your baby takes their father’s musical talent and not yours.”

Missandei let out a shriek of amusement and they both laughed softly.

“Is that why you’ve been ignoring my calls? You couldn’t bear the thought of me singing?” The question was asked jokingly, but all Daenerys could do was sigh.

“It hasn’t been much of a birthday - unless they’re supposed to be incredibly busy and stressful.” Daenerys internally added, ‘ _or speaking to exes for much longer than you should need to_.’

“Where are you anyway? You never told me before!”

Daenerys sighed again. It was going to have to come out now whether she liked it or not.

“I was trying to avoid that part.” She paused, knowing Missandei was on the brink of saying, ‘well?’ She placed a pillow over her face and gave a muffled answer. “Manchester.”

There was an audible gasp.

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you? You wouldn’t be able to go there without seeing him.” Her words came out in a rush, as if she hadn’t quite processed it yet. Daenerys groaned.

“Of course I did.” She removed the pillow from her face and sat up in frustration. “We’re on the same fucking case.”

“What?” The word was screamed. “Oh, this is ridiculously impossible. How was it?”

“I don’t know… We’ve been talking and last night…”

“What?”

Daenerys was about to drag the words out of her when the door buzzed.

“Hold on, hold on,” She muttered, getting herself up and moving to the intercom to see who was waiting for her. Her eyes widened and she let out a surprised jolt of swear words at the face that stared her back. “Fuck, shitting fucking hell.”

“ _What_?” This was another shriek of Missandei.

Daenerys brought the phone back to her ear.

“Mmmh… I’m going to have to call you back.”

“What? You can’t just -,” Daenerys hung up and cut her words off.

She held the button down to let the perfectly timed Jon Snow upstairs to her flat. She had no time to prepare for it, as she was only one floor up in the building, so she simply patted down her hair and made sure her breath smelled adequately okay before she threw the door open.

He looked just as shocked as she had been a few moments earlier. She raised her eyebrows in confusion – had he not meant to come to her flat?

“You still have those pajamas.”

Frazzled, she looked down and saw her baggy top and trousers that were covered in dragons. She shrugged defensively.

“They’re _still_ cute.”

A small smile passed his face, as if this was a joke that only he was in on. He looked down to seemingly compose himself before continuing on.

He pulled a bottle out from behind his back and handed it over to Daenerys. She noted it was a bottle of red wine and she stared at it then back to him, not taking it out of his hands.

“It’s a proper birthday present.” She scrunched her mouth into an awkward smile, taking it from him with a nod. “I thought I was actually being nice with that, but with everything that happened – it clearly wasn’t nice.”

Nice?

She had never expected that he could have meant to be nice. Could it have been nice to remind her of their relationship? Could he still maybe see the good parts of their relationship, like she did?

“Anyway, I’m sorry.” It looked like some weight had been lifted from him by handing that bottle over. “And I’m glad you’re staying… I still want to work together however we can.”

Daenerys nodded again, hoping this could possibly mean a clean slate.

“I want that too.” He smiled at her and it seemed like the end of their exchange. “Well, hey, if you’re not doing anything, we could crack open this bottle and discuss the case?”

Their eyes were locked on each other for a moment. Daenerys’ eyes looked somewhat desperate with pleading and Jon’s eyes were resisting.

“I better not, but… thanks.”

“Good, I don’t particularly want to share anyway.” A weak laugh escaped her that he didn’t return. “I’ll see you around then.”

“You will.”

She pushed the door shut and leaned against it, exhaling all the trapped air that sat within her. She stayed in that position for a few seconds longer, unaware that Jon was on the other side of the door, exhaling deeply as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things got crazy and I needed a slight hiatus, but we're back to pain. 
> 
> pls feel free to give me a kick next time @ apoulos.tumblr.com 
> 
> xoxo


	8. Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Take the weight off my shoulders  
> Say, I won't make the same mistakes when we're older  
> 'Cause with every step you take I'm getting colder  
> So come a little closer, just come a little closer  
> I don't want somebody else to call my name'
> 
> -Alone, Jessie Ware
> 
> An anthem for non-flashback jon and dany ^

“We believe based on this footage,” Tarth spoke, as she clicked through her slides to reveal the grainy video footage of someone approaching the camera area and the footage stopping as if the person broke it. “And the witness testimony that there was a male voice heard loudly discussing something with Margaery, that the suspect is a male – yes?”

Daenerys turned her head as someone raised their hand with a question. Due to the information from Sansa, there were a few new people helping on the case, but the main people were still herself, Greyjoy, Tarth and Waters.

“Is her boyfriend the main suspect?”

“He’s a suspect, but he has an alibi and the only DNA evidence we have has proven that it doesn’t belong to him. We’re still looking at him closely though.”

Daenerys gave a brief nod to Tarth as she finished speaking.

“Our current priority is finding out whom the DNA belongs to –,” DI Greyjoy started to say, but Daenerys interjected.

“And the phone.”

A few other people who had been put on the team seemed to look around quizzically and the one who had spoken earlier spoke up again.

“I thought the phone was stolen. How are we supposed to find that?”

Daenerys glanced at Tarth. It was a small request for permission to continue speaking when normally she would steamroll ahead, but due to the bad position she was in just the day before, she decided to tread more carefully than usual.

“We think her phone being stolen could have a direct relation to her now being missing.” She took a second before continuing on, surveying the room from her seat. “It would be great to know what was on the phone, but it’s important to meet whoever stole this item as well.”

Now several people were looking at her with confusion. A different lady spoke up expressing concern.

“How are we supposed to locate the person who stole her phone? Are there any leads?”

Daenerys simply stood up and silently asked Tarth to let her access the laptop that was being projected on the screen. She skipped a few slides to the Facebook message evidence that they had collected from Sansa’s phone.

She began to read the messages aloud for everyone to hear.

“Sansa: What do you mean your phone was stolen? Margaery: I mean my phone was stolen. Sansa: Maybe you lost it? Margaery: A guy took it right out of my hand, San. Sansa: OHHH my gosh, are you okay? Margaery: I’m fine… It was just scary – in the middle of Market Street too. Anyway I can’t talk here – I’ll call you off a phone soon.” Daenerys took a breath. “We assume Margaery placed a call off a payphone after that to confirm her plan.”

There was a moment of silence before the same lady spoke up again.

“How do we know that wasn’t part of the plan? To pretend that someone stole her phone, so she would be unreachable.”

Daenerys nodded her head to show that it was an excellent point they were raising.

“DS Waters spent a lot of last night looking at CCTV for Market Street based on what Sansa said and these messages.” Another silence ticked on as Daenerys waited for Waters to say something. He remained nodding his head slowly and staring at the paper in front of him, so she sharply cleared her throat. “DS Waters,” He snapped his head in her direction. “The footage?”

DS Waters stood up frantically and when Daenerys gave him a puzzled expression, he stood back down. She sighed, flipping over the slide to show the grainy footage that had been captured.

“Yeah, so…” Waters started to say. “The quality isn’t great and this is as close as I could get it, but it looks like the victim is there in the right corner and you can see two guys in hoodies kind of circle her there before that one approaches her then runs away almost instantly. See her reaction afterwards? She looks around and appears to yell – other people look over as well.”

Daenerys nods once as Waters finished up.

“There is also a resemblance to the footage we captured outside Margaery’s block of flats. Obviously we cannot say it’s the same person, but it’s something to note.” Daenerys concluded.

“We’ll have two of you go out and talk to the shops nearby if anyone saw her getting her phone stolen. Maybe they have their own CCTV that captures outside the store. It’s a long-shot, but this is a good lead to chase right now. DCI Targaryen and DCI Greyjoy will be doing the press for this with me later, so here’s how we’ll do the other tasks…”

Daenerys surveyed the room, as Tarth started breaking down the tasks and when her eyes landed on Waters, she knew there was another way to chase the phone lead. It was definitely not the most professional move, but she was impatient and it was also like her head just leapt to any option that involved Jon Snow.

 

* * *

 

_December 15 th, 2009_

“Come on, why are you doing that?” Dany rolled her eyes and folded another jumper to put into her suitcase.

“I can tell you, but it will be the… hmm… 97th time I’ve told you then. Do you know what happens when we hit 100?” She said in her best teacher voice, as she gave Jon a scolding expression as if he was a schoolkid.

Jon was lying on her double bed in her shared accommodation, as at this point she no longer shared a dorm with Missandei. Instead it was her, Doreah, Missandei and Irri, a girl on the same course as Missandei, now sharing a house together.

He smirked up at her, as if he was a naughty schoolkid as well. She loved him smirking at her. She loved him smiling. He had the most beautiful smile and he didn’t do it enough, so when he did, it always consumed her regardless of what she was doing. She frowned, as she was practically forced to stop packing.

“Do I get some kind of reward?”

She returned his smirk and crawled on to the bed. She moved sensually closer to him until she was close enough to straddle his crotch. He smiled up at her, causing Dany to let out a tiny giggle. She leaned in close and took his mouth to hers.

It was so good to be in love with Jon, to want him constantly and be overwhelmed constantly by the fact that he was in love with her too.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” She whispered as she lightly pulled away from his lips. Jon let out a groan and moved her away from his face a little by holding her arms.

“Why did you have to ruin it with that?”

Dany let out a delicate sigh.

“With reality?” She ran a hand through his lovely curls and just stared down at him with sadness in her eyes. “I don’t want to go home either.”

“Then don’t. Spend Christmas with me. My family would love you being here.” Dany rolled off his body and lay down next to him, holding his hand in between their bodies. He spoke with such conviction that it was hard for her to shake her head, but she did anyway.

“I can’t… I hate them, but they would make it so much worse if I didn’t go down for it.” She paused, thinking of a way she could get out of it. “Maybe… if I go down for longer during summer then I can spend Christmas with you next year?”

Jon gave her a soft smile and she returned it easily.

“That’s a start. I want you here every Christmas though.”

Dany let out a light laugh.

“Well, when I live down South I’ll unfortunately run out of excuses to see them as often and I can escape up North every Christmas.”

No words were exchanged for a moment that Dany mistook for a comfortable silence until she noticed Jon’s brow furrowing.

“What do you mean _when_ you live down South?”

“Oh…” Dany fumbled with her words, realizing quickly that Jon and her had never actually discussed life after uni. “Well, I want to live in London after I graduate if I got a job there… There’d be so many great jobs for you as well if you decided to continue on with Law.”

“If I continued on with Law, I’d still have a few years left of studying.”

They stared at each other for a little bit, until Jon turned to look at the ceiling.

“I always just planned to stay in Manchester.”

Dany turned to look at the ceiling as well.

It seemed so silly that they still had a year and a half left of university and they were discussing this. It also seemed so silly to be thinking about things that ruined the joy of being in love with Jon.

“So… I want to be maybe a social worker or a police officer one day…” She turned back to look at Jon and he turned to face her too. “I can go anywhere with those. Maybe London, maybe Manchester or maybe fucking… I don’t know, Glasgow. Anywhere.”

Jon smiled after a moment.

“Anywhere.” He repeated, leaning in to give her the softest of kisses that reminded her instantly of the joy of being in love with him.

“I’m going to need you to stop distracting me now, so that we still have time to watch the new David Attenborough show later, okay?” He laughed, shaking his head and she gave him a slight push with her hand. “I’m serious!”

She pushed herself up and returned to packing her suitcase, but her eyes kept flickering to Jon’s; the conversation still playing over in her mind, like it’d never stop doing.

* * *

 

_Present Day_

Daenerys pulled on the bottom of her blazer as she waited outside the shit looking café Jon had asked her to meet him at. She felt overdressed for such a place, but with her press conference that afternoon she had to be dressed more formally than usual. She had on her office heels that she actually never usually got to wear as she spent a limited time in the office, along with her black dress and blazer combination.

She looked around again, wondering why the fuck they needed to meet here to discuss the information she had handed over to him. When she forwarded over the grainy footage to him via email (something she really shouldn’t be doing at all), he had said he might have a lead and to meet her here without real explanation.

Her heart started racing as she finally saw him crossing the road to approach where she stood. When she had said ‘see you around then’ she may have hoped it would be a matter of hours later, but she hadn’t really expected it if she was honest with herself.

He looked beautiful with his ragged hair, beard and glorious leather jacket. Men were always hot or attractive or, on drunken occasions, _fit_ to her, but they were never beautiful – Jon was the only exception to that. Every inch of him was beautiful – his eyes, his hair, his mouth and yes, his inches.

She had to avert her eyes as that thought crossed her as she worried her cheeks might flush. Once she was under enough control, she looked right back at him and flashed as normal a smile she could. He didn’t return one, but that was very much like Jon.

“If you wanted to take me on a date, I could have suggested a better place.” Daenerys quickly stated, signaling with her hand to the café they were stood outside of.

“Ha,” Jon said slowly, motioning one hand to her outfit. “You’re dressed like you’re going on a date.”

“I just wanted to make an effort for you,” She frowned deeply in a comical fashion. “Doesn’t look like you wanted to though.”

He looked down at what he was wearing and raised one eyebrow when he glanced back up at Daenerys. He was giving her a hint of a smile and she was quick to accept it.

“Well, enough of this flirting now, Snow. It’s quite unprofessional – what are we doing here?” She hated herself as soon as the words left her, but when she was especially nervous she had to be more teasing. Jon was shaking his head with a trace of laughter.

“There’s this gang that operate in the city centre area and they steal phones to sell them on. I’ve dealt with them before, so I’ve got a good idea they’ll know something.”

Daenerys couldn’t stop the audible squawk of surprise that left her.

“Are you really saying you think they stole it? This has been remarkably quick.” Jon shrugged.

“They run quite a big operation and call themselves ‘The Night’s Watch’. Looking at that video, I don’t see how they don’t have something to do with it.”

“The Night’s Watch?” She snorted. “They sound like they should be crack dealers on street corners, not stealing phones.”

“Well… they do that too.” Daenerys stared back in disbelief. “Told you it was a big operation.”

“And we’re here, because…” She trailed off, staring up at the semi-broken sign that simply said ‘Café’.

“They meet in here.” Daenerys’ head revolved so quickly back to Jon it almost gave her whiplash.

“We’re meeting them here?” She stood taller and tried to get a better look inside, but Jon pulled her back down by her shoulder a little with one of his hands. “What?”

“Yes, but… if we’re going in there, you can’t say you’re a detective. They won’t speak. Obviously.”

Daenerys nodded, but then gave the tiniest of sighs.

“I’m going to be giving press later. I’ll be on TV.”

Jon seemed puzzled at first, but then his face evened out once more. He let go of her shoulder

“You haven’t been on TV yet. Just pretend you’re my assistant or something.”

Daenerys then pulled his arm back to look at her.

“Wait, why would they be okay speaking to a private detective?”

Jon let out a deep sigh and massaged the side of his head with two of his pointed fingers.

“When I said I dealt with them, I meant that they’ve actually helped me out with some cases. I pay them back usually with cash or free cases on their behalf.” He paused, staring at Daenerys and her changing expression. “Don’t look like that. It’s what you’re basically doing with me.”

“What am I doing with you?” Daenerys didn’t mean to snap, but her defenses appeared to still be fully intact after his present giving the other day.

“Utilising my intel to help you with the case? They can be helpful with the people they know.”

“Oh…” Daenerys turned to look back inside the café with an obvious expression of the thoughts running through her mind.

“Is that okay?”

She turned back to Jon with her thoughtful expression.

Jon worked in a completely different world to hers. It was one thing to get the help of a private detective, as sometimes the police did use the help of private detectives with upper management approval, but to seek out the help of known criminals in a place that wasn’t an interrogation room seemed to be really breaking the rules.

She could have easily not gone in and just had Jon report back to her, but something in her made her want to do this with Jon. She wanted to be in this with him and that would cause her to be a very bad police detective.

“The only thing I’m not happy about is being your assistant.” She grumbled, holding out her hand to show he could take the lead – an action that perfectly contradicted her spoken sentiments.

The café was empty bar a table in the back that had a few young guys, no older than twenty, sat around doing nothing but sit on their phones. Jon walked right over to the table and slowly the guys seemed to recognize him and stared blankly at him.

“Olly?” A tall, lanky guy who seemed to be sat head and centre of the table spoke to Jon.

“Yeah.”

The guy slowly raised himself up from the table.

“He’s in the back.” He went through a back door without another word.

Daenerys was crazily trying to make eye contact with Jon, but he continued to stare right ahead.

“Who is Olly?” Daenerys breathed out, but Jon didn’t even acknowledge her.

Soon enough this ‘Olly’ person entered from the back of the café. He seemed impossibly younger than the others who were already outside with them – he must have been eighteen years at the oldest. Yet he seemed to command a lot of attention from the others. His eyes moved between Jon and Daenerys with careful concentration.

“Ah, we’ve got the wolf and…” He paused, what seemed to be an attempt at a smirk on his face as he stared Daenerys down. “A lioness surely.”

The level of cockiness caused her to roll her eyes ever so lightly. She could practically feel Jon tensing his body next to her as if to say, ‘ _don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it…_ ’, but she couldn’t fucking help herself.

“And what would you be? A peacock?” She stood a little taller, watching with satisfaction as he seemed to not quite know what to say to that. He shifted his weight on his feet and gave a snort of laughter.

“A peacock?”

Daenerys cleared her throat.

“Yes, struts about, shows off and… _pea_ could be describing something small.” She really made sure to enunciate her last few words to make sure the message was driven home and it seemed to work as laughter erupted from the other guys there.

She raised an eyebrow and watched with glee, as it took this Olly a little longer to respond.

“She got you good!” Someone shouted, but they quickly shut up when Olly turned to them with a glare.

“We’ll keep an eye on you.” He said, in equal parts joke and challenge. Daenerys simply smirked. He adjusted himself to sit in a chair opposite them at the table and looked to Jon. “Who is she?”

“My assistant, Dany.” Jon mumbled, making it very clear to Daenerys that he was regretting her being there.

“Are you here to settle your previous debt?” Dany turned to Jon and noted the somewhat puzzled expression on his face.

“What? From my last case? I’m sure it wasn’t much, like £100.”

“Still debt.”

A silence settled that was uncomfortable and all Daenerys wanted to do was say something to break it, but it wasn’t really her conversation now.

“I’ll be able to get whatever you’re owed after this case.”

“So you need some help?” Olly asked, a wry smile forming on his face. Daenerys cleared her throat.

“It’s the Margaery Tyrell case.”

A few guys exchanged looks, but Olly continued to look blank.

“The what?”

Jon and Daenerys looked at each other. Daenerys was looking for permission to continue to speak, but Jon looked like he was asking her if he could go ahead. Daenerys reverted her gaze back out to Olly, allowing Jon to speak.

“We’ve got this footage.” He walked over showing the video on his phone and Daenerys noted how Olly had a good poker face, because a few of the others were looking like they recognized it. “Her phone was stolen just before her disappearance. Are these some of your guys?”

Olly sat back in his seat, as if thinking through what the best answer was to give right now. He eventually gave a brief nod.

“One of my guys has already come to me about this, okay? It’s a big case, right?” Daenerys and Jon both nodded in-sync. “No police coming here about it.”

“Of course not.” Daenerys replied, perhaps too quickly.

“And 30% cut of your profit from this one.” Jon groaned.

“Come on, you know, I’d never agree to that. 5%.” Olly chewed on his knuckle.

“10% and we have a deal.” Jon looked pained to contemplate that offer.

“It better be fucking good.”

Olly leaned forward in his seat and handed Jon’s phone back over to him.

“My guy here, Spud,” He gestured over with a nod of his head and Daenerys scrunched up her nose, fighting the urge to question how you would get a nickname quite like that. “Got approached by an old friend from school to steal her phone and give it back on to him.”

“Who?” Jon and Daenerys asked their question at the same time.

“Joff. Joff Baratheon.”

Daenerys caught her breath in her throat. Could she really have solved the case already? If he had Margaery’s phone, he would surely be able to see that she had been talking with Sansa and that would give him a huge motive – a motive enough to kill someone.

“Do you have any proof of this?”

“Nah, it was a face to face talk. Don’t do that shit over phone.” Spud said and Daenerys nodded to herself.

She went through the difficulty of getting any result out of this. She might be able to get a warrant to search his house in order to find the phone and then he would be the number one suspect, despite the alibi.

“Well, thank you for your assistance and hospitality.” Daenerys said definitively, as Jon nodded in agreement.

“I’d like to spend alone time with you.” Olly said, as perhaps a goodbye. Daenerys couldn’t help but let out a snort.

“I’ve never been with a peacock and don’t want to start now.” The other guys let out whooping noises to let Olly know he had been burned again. As they were leaving the café, she leaned in close to Jon to reveal the second part of her joke. “There was one exception to that… I’m joking – obviously.”

Jon didn’t look like he particularly cared for her joke. She turned around to give a final look at the back table and they were all seriously talking once more apart for Olly who stared right at the pair with a hard look. It gave Daenerys a shiver, but Jon quickly pulled on her arm to bring her around the corner.

“I know the joke wasn’t that funny, but no need to get physical.” Daenerys snapped, shaking her arm out of his grip.

“Not as physical as those guys can get. That wasn’t the place to… be yourself.” Daenerys rolled her eyes, but when she could see just how serious Jon was about it, she gave the smallest of smiles, still teasing with her words.

“Are you worried about me?”

Jon’s face didn’t grow any less serious, but his eyes seemed to widen as if he was shocked that Daenerys could even ask that question. She melted into those eyes right then and there, wondering if she could take, for just one second again, joy at being in love with Jon Snow.

“Of course I am.”

They didn’t take their eyes off each other and Daenerys considered closing the distance between them, but, of course, her phone started to loudly ring then.

“Shit,” She practically yelled, diving into her pocket, as Jon quickly removed his gaze from her. “It’s the office. Shit, I need to get to this press thing.”

Jon just nodded.

“Yeah, well, let me know what you do about this Joffrey thing.”

And then he walked away, leaving Daenerys in the less than satisfactory location that was the dingy corner of a Manchester city street with her heart once again in her throat.

 

* * *

 

“You’re cutting it fine.”

Daenerys gave her best smile, as if she wasn’t completely flustered from being stuck in traffic and running to get to the press.

She joined them at the bottom of the stage before leading the way to the table where they would sit to give their briefing.

“I was working on the phone thing and I have a major lead -,”

“After.” Tarth simply said, so mildly scolding Daenerys for once. Daenerys nodded multiple times, as if to show this was fine. “I’ll be leading and you two will just stay quiet, okay?”

Daenerys looked at Greyjoy who was giving her a mocking smile.

“I’m sure you’ll find that part hard.” Daenerys rolled her eyes dramatically, but didn’t reply, as yes, she would find that extremely difficult.

“I will just be giving the old speech and then we’ll take one question from the lead reporter.”

“Is the Tyrell family not going to be here?” Daenerys asked, noticing that they weren’t

“We thought it was best at this stage not to have them here.” Tarth stated.

“Especially as they’ve already been so talkative to the press.” Greyjoy added, annoyance passing across her face.

That part was true.

They approached the table and took their seats. It was a moderately sized room without many reporters, but the intensity of the cameras was still a lot and something Daenerys would never get used to. She had done press many times for her cases before, but she would never forget the first one she had done for the flowers case and her nerves for this one were no different.

“We would like to thank you for joining us here today.” Tarth paused and Daenerys made sure to look directly at the cameras as well with determination to show even though she wasn’t speaking, she cared deeply about the case. “On Sunday, 8th April, 2018, Margaery Tyrell became a missing person. We have no reason to believe at the precise moment that she is missing from her own free will. We are urging anyone who has seen or knows of anything that may be helpful to the case to please let us know – questions at the end please.”

“Just one thing… does this have relation, as speculated, to the flowers case? Does that mean she could be dead?”

Daenerys couldn’t help herself. She never could. She was like a top student in class who knew the answer and couldn’t help herself.

“We believe based on the circumstances that this is merely a copycat case.”  

Daenerys cleared her throat and remained silent for the rest of the press.

 

* * *

 

“Can this not wait until inside my office?” DCI Tarth asked, as they only just entered the station, but Daenerys was replying almost immediately.

“No, of course not, so basically I got a lead about this group that steal phones and then they confirmed Joffrey Baratheon had -,”

“DI Targaryen,” Daenerys turned around from her flurry of words to the desk. “This came for you.”

Daenerys approached the desk in surprise. She was handed a small brown envelope. At first she stupidly thought it might be a late birthday present for her, but when she opened it she couldn’t be more wrong.

She was staring back at a photo of herself from the original press conference for the flowers case where she was sat in the background with nothing to say then. She turned the photo over in a panic and saw the words, ‘a copycat, right?’

“What is it?” She hadn’t realized DCI Tarth was still there, but she was unable to respond to her. Her breathing got heavy and she thought she was going to vomit. The vomit could have literally come out of her, but she swallowed a bulk of it down and proceeded to breathe as if she was on the brink of a panic attack. 

DCI Tarth approached and Daenerys turned the photo over to show the photo of a younger Daenerys on her other case.

“Maybe it is all linked.” Daenerys said softly with her head spinning.

 

* * *

 

It was late when Daenerys left the building. She had a police officer escorting her to the nearest taxi rank, as she refused to move to more remote or deemed safer building.

She was so tired from the hours that had just passed. The photo had gone to forensics to check for any handling fingerprints and then they needed to go through what this photo could now mean for the case that she had been so willing to put on Joffrey Baratheon just a few hours before.

Her head hurt and she didn’t know what to think about her case anymore. All she knew now was that she was now a personal part of this case and she had never been that before.

She stopped and stared at the police officer who was walking alongside her. The police officer stopped too.

“I really don’t need the hand holding, okay?”

“I’m not holding your hand.” The older police officer said. She let out a small, frustrated growl.

“Not literally… Ugh, just… the taxi is right there; I can walk there just fine.” There was a pause as the police officer considered that option.

“No, I’ve been told I have to wait until you’re in a taxi.”

She sighed, ready to begin walking again when she heard her name get called and it wasn’t just her name, it was her nickname… meaning it could only be one person.

“Jon…” She said, knowing that due to the past few hours of her life, she was more likely to burst out crying to him now than ever before. She smiled out of relief to see him there by his rundown car.

“Do you know him?” The police officer asked, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

“Yes, he’s my…” She trailed off, not wanting to reveal that at the end of the day he was just an ex.

“Do you trust him?”

“More than anyone.” Daenerys said breathily, already walking over to Jon, who could now sense something was very, very wrong.

“Dany, what’s going on?” He asked, as she collapsed into his arms.

For a mere second she panicked that he wouldn’t give her the hug she so badly needed right now, but then his arms encompassed her and she sighed with relief to feel his body around her. Her head still fit so perfectly in the nook between his chin and chest, and she realized this was her home.

It was never about London or Manchester being her home; it was about being in this space between his arms. Why did it take her so long to work that out?

“I’ll take you back to yours.” He whispered softly and she felt his chin move with every word and breath he took.

“Can you stay?”

Her words left her like a timid child, because she was so aware of how easily he could say no. However she felt his head nod before he said anything.

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who keeps reviewing and showing love for this little fic. It makes all of it worth it to know some people are genuinely enjoying it! 
> 
> IT'S MY BDAY TOMORROW so had to get this out before the celebrations occur 
> 
> Next chapter will be mainly from Jon's POV. 
> 
> let me know your fave moment from this chapter xoxo


	9. In The Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'And there may be questions in your head  
> As a new day is dawning  
> Like what things for us lie ahead  
> But woman, I will see you in the morning  
> \------  
> And I know every mark on your hand  
> Perhaps you'd like me more if I was still in a band'
> 
> \- In The Morning, Keaton Henson (finally get to use a song of my love) 
> 
>  
> 
> lol do u remember me

“What were you doing outside the station?”

This is the first thing Dany finally asks when they get into her flat. Jon had attempted to ask things when they were in his car, but after she ignored ‘what happened?’ and ‘what’s going on?’ several times, he decided to let her speak first when she was ready.

Jon wasn’t expecting that to be the first thing to come out of her mouth, so it took him a second to respond. She turned slowly around in the middle of her flat with the big features of her impressive flat swallowing up her tiny, fragile body. She crossed her arms and stared at him with empty eyes.

All he wanted to do was ask her again what the hell had happened, but he shut her front door and walked a little nearer to her.

“I came here after your press, but you weren’t here, so I thought you might be at the station still.”

What had he been so desperate to see her about in the flesh? Had he even just tried to call her?

He cursed himself, because he knew he hadn’t needed to see her that badly. He found it so easy to give himself excuses to see her at the moment. It infuriated him. He shouldn’t want to see her, but also, if he hadn’t felt like he _needed_ to see her, then he wouldn’t have found her in this state. He wouldn’t have got to see her _needing_ him once more.

He cursed himself again for sounding like such a helpless and selfish twat.

Dany nodded once and then wiped at her face with one hand in a hurried motion, as if she was trying to hide something from Jon, just like he tried to hide everything he felt from her.

“A photo came to the station today,” She announced, sadly. Jon wanted to wrap her up in his arms one more time. One more time would be enough. “It was of the last press I went to for the flowers case. I don’t get this case anymore… Is it a copycat? Is it the original killer? Is it…”

She bit her lip so hard that Jon thought she might have caused bleeding.

“Am I in danger?”

Her eyes were on the verge of watering and Jon had to close the distance between them to hug her. Her head nestled under his chin and she breathed heavily, like she was trying not to cry.

He knew then ‘one more time’ would never be enough.

And yet he would never know whether this time would be the last time or if he would get one more time. All he knew was that this privilege of holding Dany was one he wasn’t going to get forever. For a long time he thought he would get an infinity of ‘one more times’, but it was snatched away from him.

The moment he remembered that it all had ended for him once before, he pulled himself away from her and forced himself to look at her wet face and not feel anything.

“This was just done to scare you… whoever it is must know that you’re the one who is going to solve this case and they don’t want you on it.” She took a second before nodding and breathing in deeply.

He went to take a step back further from her, as he couldn’t not feel anything when staring at her, but she quickly reached out for his hand.

“I just don’t want to be alone right now.” Her eyes were piercing into him with memories that he had tried to forget.

He wasn’t sure what she was asking for. Was it a kiss? Was it to spend the night? He wanted to give her anything she wanted in that moment, but he knew that wasn’t wise.

“Of course… I can sleep on the sofa.”

She let out a sad laugh and shook her head, as if the solution he provided was useless.

“Please… I’m not asking for anything here… Just company.”

He sighed and quickly she seemed to close up again, her eyes retracting the memories that he apparently wanted to hold onto. 

“It’s _silly_ … I’m sorry, that’s too much to ask.”

Jon squeezed her hand that was still held out for him and tried to sound as sure as he could.

“Okay, Dany, it’s okay.”

He felt her hand shiver over his hand and her eyes flittered between their hands and his eyes with a hint of smile. He softly returned her smile.

 

* * *

 

They lay in bed. Dany was under the covers and Jon lay over them with his clothes still on. He wanted to comfort her so badly, but he had already done more than enough that night. If he physically comforted her anymore then she would be all he thought about again and all he wanted. He couldn’t let himself fall into that trap again.

He was thankful for the fact that she had entered the bedroom in a full sweatshirt and pants combination, so none of her delicate skin was visible to him, because he couldn’t have dealt with any more exposure to her perfections. His mind had stored up memories that could tempt him in several ways.

Her breasts, her bare ass and moles in the most intimate of places…

No, he most definitely shouldn’t be thinking about those things when he was so close to her.

“Thank you,” She barely whispered.

He moved his head on the pillow where he had been staring straight up at her ceiling to where she lay. Her body was positioned to face him completely, but her face was barely visible to Jon in the darkness. He moved his lips to form a smile although he couldn’t be sure if she saw it or not.

He went to move his head back to its’ former position, thinking that was the end of their conversation, but then she spoke out again.

“Why did they call you the wolf?”

He was so blindsided by the casualness of her question that a snort escaped him. When he realized what she was talking about, he let out a proper laugh, because of course she was thinking about something as trivial as that.

“Uh… it’s like the lone wolf. I guess they’ve only ever seen me alone.”

 “You would never be alone.” Her voice shook slightly as she spoke and he had to fight against the urge to reach out for her again. “Your family is everything you could ever need. You’ll never be alone with them there. I’m more a wolf than you.”

She sighed and rolled over to be on her back, staring up at the ceiling as if what she was saying didn’t involve Jon at all.

“I just got that photo and thought, ‘I don’t have any support for this right now’ and then you were there and it makes no sense, but you’re the only thing I have to stop me feeling completely alone in all this. My ex…”

She let out a hollow laugh and Jon didn’t know what he could say to let her know that he actually didn’t mind that state of affairs at all, so he stayed quiet. Dany turned her head to face him and they were left to just stare at each other in the dark. He realized she had been waiting for him to say something back, as she eventually turned away and called out into the darkness,

“Goodnight.”

 

* * *

 

A flashing light outside the window is what first wakes Jon up. He is left confused as he is not greeted by the familiarity of his own bedroom, but to a sleeping Dany. When his memory readjusted to the fact that he had come home with Dany the night before, then he just took a second to enjoy the image of Dany sleeping with her tussled hair.

He had always thought she looked prettiest in the morning when she was just waking up and the light now falling across her face recreated it in some way. She winced as the light passed her eyes and she moaned in sleepy annoyance, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“Is it morning yet?” She asked.

Jon wasn’t expecting her to speak and so he was rushed into a reply. He turned over to find his phone and the little screen flashed that it was only 4:30am. He rolled back over, happy to be able to give his reply.

“No, a couple of hours left.”

She seemed happy with the answer as well, as her body stopped fidgeting and she seemed to instantly fall back to sleep.

He wanted the night to go slow, so he would get an eternity of time to just be with her in this moment where they didn’t need to think about their past or their future, but he could just take this moment to enjoy how pretty she was when she slept.

Even with her hair now not sprawling out across the bed as he was used to, she still was an image of beauty. He lifted a hand to tuck away some of her hair off her face, but he held back at the last second; that wasn’t his place anymore, he was already intruding by taking up the same bed space as her and getting to look upon that face, so he just went back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

When he awoke again, natural light was pouring through the room. His hand reached out to the space next to him, as his eyes adjusted to properly waking up, but his hand brushed against bedsheets instead of Dany – she wasn’t lying next to him anymore. 

 He rubbed his face with both of his hands, trying to wake himself up as best as he could. He properly took in her temporary room and wished they had been in her actual room, so he could see the little things that Dany kept around her nowadays and the things that made her who she was today, but that would have probably made him feel worse.

At the realization that he was _wanting_ to make himself feel worse to just know what he had missed out on, he got himself up from her bed and walked out the room to where he could hear noises from the entrance which was also where the kitchen was located. 

She was stood over the counter, analyzing something hard with squinted eyes and a tilted head. Her short hair was tucked behind her ears with just one strand dangling in front of her eyes that she kept moving back with one hand.

He remained watching her for a moment, enjoying being able to witness her in her natural environment, completely unaware of how beautiful she looked right then. It was like seeing her sleep.

He cleared his throat eventually.

“Oh, morning…” She looked as sheepish as he felt. They had crossed a line of intimacy and now Jon didn’t know how to be with her.

She turned to the papers she had open once more, before finally looking up at him with determination.

“I think I’m going to be able to arrange a warrant for searching Joffrey’s house today. If we find the phone, then we have enough to bring him in for questioning again.”

“What about yesterday?”

One of Dany’s eyes creased, as if she had tension from not being able to sleep. As soon as the tension came across her face, it passed again and she gave the fakest and brightest smile imaginable.

“Why would that change anything?”

“It should change everything.” Jon practically growled his answer.

It was ridiculous that he could spend so many years attempting to forget her existence and even succeeding for a while with a few happy years, but as soon as she waltzed back into his life, he was worried about her with the same ferocity he had always worried about her.

She had asked him yesterday if he was worried with a hint of a joke in her voice, but the biggest joke of all was that yes, it was true.

And he didn’t want to feel that way about her again.

“It actually helps the case a significant amount. It could be the thing that proves whether it’s a copycat case or not and then the thing with the phone… I think I might be getting to the bottom of it and maybe she’ll still be alive, so…”

She practically hopped over to where Jon stood, as if she was excited by all of this. Jon shook his head at her in complete confusion, but she ignored it and instead tentatively put her hand on his shoulder.

She was so different today than she was the night before. Jon was almost shocked that she was exactly the same as she had always been. She would fight against vulnerability and when she showed it then she would do her best to ignore it ever happened.

“How are you going to arrange a warrant for the phone? Surely you’d need some evidence to support your belief he has it?”

Her excitement seemed to pause, as she looked to answer his question.

“Well… Olly confirmed that it was Joffrey and so I can just say I went there and got confirmation from him.”

“But you can’t bring them into the station, as you already -,”

“I just need an officer to agree that they chased the lead with me, as long as I have supporting evidence that this Spud is part of the gang and Spud and Joffrey went to the same school then it’ll be more than enough to prove it’s not just a coincidence. I’ll get a warrant.”

Jon sighed. She could be so calculating when she wanted to be, like with this case and towards the end of their relationship… Or the fact that she called Sansa to come back here and surprise Jon then get her to not tell him about it ever.

“And I assume that officer is going to be Gendry?”

She looked like she was about to smile at the fact that he got it right, but she must have noticed his expression and she stopped herself.

“He’ll know why I need him to do it. I can’t say I went with you.”

He shook his head slightly.

“You don’t walk a very straight line for a detective.”

Her face made too many twitches for her not to be reacting to what he said, but her next question wasn’t a response to what he said. Her hand dropped from his shoulder.

“What are you going to do with the case today? It’s Friday 13th, so we should both be a little careful I guess.”

Her mouth cracked into a small smile. Clearly she was back to pretending everything was fine. Maybe it was for her.

“Well, there’s not much point in me doing anything with Joffrey, as you seem to be handling that just fine. I’ll be seeing the Tyrells at some point, but I need to see Sam this morning.”

Dany blinked repeatedly at this before a small smile formed.

“Okay, of course… Tell him… I guess, maybe say I said hello.”

He shrugged in response, unsure if he was even going to tell Sam that Dany was back. Dany looked to wait for him to say something else, but when he didn’t she gave a brief nod of her head and backed away.

“Anyway… I better make a move now, so…”

Despite backing away before, she now lurched forward to walk past Jon in the direction of her room. Jon turned to watch her disappear before making his own way towards the door to leave this very surreal experience.

 

* * *

 

_January 15 th, 2010_

“Thanks, mate.”

Jon took his pint and wine that was for Dany from the barman and turned back around to head to the table, but he stopped in bemusement as he saw Dany staring blankly at something whilst their friends continued to talk around them. He let out a private laugh and resumed walking over to her.

“Dany…” He said softly as he set out the drinks in front of them, but as she continued to stare in front of her, Jon poked her in her ribs and said her name a bit more forcefully. “Daenerys!”

She turned to look at him with disgust.

“Why the fuck are you calling me that?”

He laughed in her face full of anger and he received a hit across the wrist for that.

“You’ve literally just be zoned out for fuck knows how long.”

Her nose scrunched up in the cutest of ways, as she tried to consider if she had been doing that before pure joy shone from her face. She then hit him again this time out of clear excitement.

“Okay, okay, so I was just thinking…” Before she leaned in close to his ear, she checked around her in a conspiratorial manner. Jon let out a chuckle as her breath tickled at his ear.

“Have you ever noticed the way Sam looks at Doreah? Do you think he likes her?” He could feel that she was smiling by the tone of her voice and so he wasn’t surprised when she gently pulled back to look him in the eye with a grin on her face.

He, of course, knew that Sam held a torch for Doreah. He was surprised it had taken Dany that long to figure it out as well. Sam was a generous guy by nature, but he always went an extra mile for Doreah by helping her study even though they did different courses, always remembering her food or drink orders, so he could randomly turn up with that for her and writing extra nice things in her birthday cards.

Dany must have been studying Jon’s expression extra carefully, because her eyes narrowed and her smile widened when he took a beat to reply.

“He does! Of course he does… Why have you not spoken to me about this sooner?” She practically squealed in his ear. Jon let out an almost sigh and shrugged, turning to see Sam and Doreah over at the jukebox picking some music.

“It didn’t feel like something worth mentioning and besides I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

“NOT something worth mentioning? Shut up, Snow.” She rolled her eyes and took a dramatic sip of her wine.

“Well, yeah -,”

“I can totally set them up together on a date. Doreah loves Sam.”

“As a friend…”

“Yes, because they’re friends right now, but there’s definitely potential there.”

A fire had been lit to her eyes now as she watched them standing together and laughing.

“A little push here and a little shove there, then it could be -,”

“Okay, okay now.”

Jon tucked his fingers under her chin to pull her in to look at him again. She gave him an innocent smile even though it was very evident that Jon was after her.

“We all know you love to push situations to how you want them to look, but let’s not get carried away.”

He gave her a soft kiss on the lips after he said that and with closed eyes Dany nodded in agreement.

A beat of silence passed before Dany broke it.

“But… I might just pop to the toilets, because I’ve just seen Doreah heading that way and I would really love to mention how nice her and Sam would be together!”

Her words tumbled out so quickly that Jon barely had a chance to stop her. Soon enough she was out of her seat and running in the direction of the toilets with her silver hair trailing behind her.

A snort of laughter left Jon as he watched after her. He took a sip of his pint and shook his head.

“Crazy twat.”

 

* * *

 

_Present Day_

The sound of the kettle boiling brought Jon back into the room with Sam. He was sure he was turning out to be the shittiest best man ever, because between Dany’s return and the biggest case he had ever gotten, he was being mentally pulled in enough directions without having to think about the wedding as well.

“So yeah, I’ll head back to the library whenever you need to head into town.” Jon just nodded even though Sam was making them tea, so couldn’t see Jon’s silent answer.

Sam was doing a PhD, because this was Sam and Sam was always going to end up doing a PhD to be the smartest person in most rooms that he walked into.

“Can you believe I’m getting married in under a month now?” He walked across his kitchen, putting their teas on the counter that Jon was sat at.

“No… No, I can’t.” Jon replied, giving what he hoped was a warming smile.

“There’s apparently still a lot to do. Well, this is what Gilly tells me, but after we decided what cake filling we wanted months ago, I kind of checked out on - …”

“Dany’s back.”

The words left him softly, but it felt like an explosion to Jon. It felt like it had needed to escape him since Sam had let him into the house. He didn’t know how he lasted even five minutes.

“…And now she’s talking about bleeding napkin- wait, what did you say?” Sam’s face had changed to one of shock in a matter of seconds.

“Dany’s back. She’s fucking back.”

All that could be heard was the loud ticking of Sam’s kitchen clock. Sam stared at Jon and just blinked repeatedly at him, finally putting his teacup down with his tubby hand as he gave up trying to take a sip on it.

“What do you mean? Back? What is she doing here? You’ve seen her?”

Jon put his head in his hands and took two deep breaths.

This is why he had tried to bite his tongue, because he wasn’t sure he could answer all of the questions Sam was bound to have.

“She’s a detective on the same case as me.” He sat up straight again before the next part left him. “I kissed her the other night.”

Sam’s eyes widened and a huge sigh left him that seemed to fill the whole room.

“Well…” He let out a low whistle. “Don’t suppose you’ve got ciggies on you?”

 

* * *

 

Jon lit his own cigarette after helping Sam with his. He eyed him carefully try to inhale before letting out a strained cough.

“Are you sure you even want it?”

Sam let out another cough before replying.

“This is what people do during stressful times, right?” He asked, before looking out at the sky that was beautifully visible between the trees in his small back garden.

He coughed again and seemed to quickly give up on the cigarette, stubbing it out with his shoe.

“I just wanted the fresh air really.”

Jon let out a short laugh despite himself and continued to smoke his own cigarette.

“Why did you say she was back again?”

“The case.”

A smoky breath left Jon and his voice strained as he repeated himself. He understood that Sam was hearing this for the first time and Jon had already had almost five days to process all this, but he needed the idea to settle in Sam’s mind quickly so he could be of help to his own fucked up head.

“Right, right… So you’ve seen her?”

“I kissed her.” Jon painfully repeated himself yet again.

“Yes, you did… why?”

Jon didn’t want to answer that. He didn’t know  _how_  to answer that. Why had he kissed her? The only answer he had was that he was a stupid fucking idiot. She was there opening herself up to him and trying to use the fact that he still loved her to her advantage… Her advantage? As if she was being that manipulative?

Had she been?

He shrugged pointlessly.

“She’s cut her hair.”

Sam stared blankly at Jon before raising his voice for the first time in clear bemusement.

“And that’s why you kissed her?”

“No, it was just something to note.”

Sam shook his head and looked back up to the sky.

“How is she?”

Jon didn’t exactly know how to answer that as well. A few days back maybe he could have guessed that she was doing great, better than he would ever do, but the more he knocked down her heavily built up wall, he realized that she might be just as lost as he was.

“She’s fine.” Jon decided on a much simpler answer than what went around in his head. As an afterthought, he said, “She said to say hi.”

Sam’s face seemed to cloud over at that. He looked Jon right in the eye as if trying to determine whether he was serious or not. Eventually he snorted in a mixture of laughter and anger.

“It’s been… how long has it been? Seven years? She could have said ‘hi’ years ago. She was the only one who knew -…” Sam stopped himself from speaking and let out a soft laugh. “I guess tell her I said hi.”

Jon gave a short nod, unsure whether he should press Sam further about what he had almost started speaking about, but Sam spoke out once more.

“Anyway what are you thinking?”

“I don’t know… My head is fucked. I just don’t know.”

That was the best he was going to manage.

“It’s weird though, isn’t it? She’s come back just when things haven’t been the best with you. Why now?”

People say that exes come back when you stop thinking about them or when you’re happy with someone else, but she had come back at the moment when he was probably the most susceptible for falling for her again. Jon had been thinking about precisely that since she walked back into her office.

“It’s just typical, isn’t it? I didn’t even care about her anymore then she walks into my life again and I’m back stuck between hating her and -,” He stopped himself and swallowed hard. “You know she’s working on the case with Gendry? And she’s seen fucking Sansa.”

Jon was talking to the sky as he finished his cigarette, but the tap on his shoulder made him to turn to find Sam giving him a sad smile.

“Dany’s easy to love and if she came here now, I’d probably just feel like we could start over again, but you need to be careful, yeah? When you say she’s back in your life, she really is. She’ll probably be seeing all of your family again if you’re not careful and then she’ll go.”

Sam was right.

It didn’t matter how long this case took and how close they got again, the end result would be the same.

She would go.

 

* * *

 

The door opened and revealed a flushed looking Sansa. When she cried it always made her cheeks go red, so he knew from her pink glow that she had spent a fair amount of time crying that day.

“Oh, hi, Jon.” She gave him what was definitely an attempt of a smile.

“I just wanted to see how you were.”

She opened the door a little, as if an invitation to let Jon in, but she stood very still, so Jon didn’t venture forward. He could see the curtains will still drawn in her room despite it now being just after noon.

“Where were you last night?”

“What? Oh… I stayed at the office.”

He had momentarily forgotten that he had actually spent the night in bed with his ex.

He didn’t even mention that part to Sam. He was fucked in the head.

“I’ve just been in and out of sleep.” She said, as if answering his silent question. “Everyone’s being very supportive… Too supportive really. Mum’s made me breakfast, Arya wants to help you on the case to get it solved faster and uhm…Dany called me earlier.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper as she said the last bit, as it was secret Dany was back here, like it was a secret that Margaery wasn’t just a friend.

Jon stood up a little taller.

“ _Why_?”

Sansa seemed a little taken aback by the hurriedness in his tone.

“She just wanted to see how I was doing. It was,” Sansa shrugged. “Nice.”

“Okay,” Jon looked at the ceiling, rather than looking at Sansa. “Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing, but I’ve got loads to do on this now. I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything.”

“Okay.”

Sansa kept her bedroom door opened a little longer, but Jon stormed off to his temporary bedroom, already searching for the number he needed on his phone.

Of course it was just ringing out now that he needed to speak to her, but she had time to ring his family member, like it was a normal thing for her to do.

He slumped down onto his unused bed and held the unanswered phone in his hand.

Sam was right.

There were no boundaries set here. Professional seeped into unprofessional and they went from one day kissing to the next day not talking to the next making pointless jokes and remarks. What was she doing to his head?

They needed to focus on the case and not on each other.

He would need to tell her that she couldn’t just ring Sansa, they could only talk about the case and he most certainly couldn’t spend a fucking night in her bed again.

His phone flashed alerting to him the fact that she was calling him back. Now that she had provided him with more time to think about it, he was furious when he eventually answered it.

“We need to set some fucking boundaries here and -,”

“We’ve found a body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I am already working on the next chapter xoxo 
> 
> It's literally been the craziest two months of my life. Throw in two guys, an unexpected house move, a new job and a dead relative and you get more crazy stress than i can cope with. i'm so sorry for the wait. love y'all for staying with it <3


	10. Six Feet Under

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Our love is six feet under  
> I can't help but wonder  
> If our grave was watered by the rain  
> Would roses bloom?'  
> \- Six Feet Under, Billie Eilish
> 
> *semi-big plot drop coming in this one?*

_Earlier that day_

Daenerys pushed open the door to the main office with her forehead, as her hands were occupied with two takeaway cups of coffee and nobody seemed to hear her shoe knocking against the door.

She dreaded what she had done to her makeup by pushing the door open with her face, but there were currently more important matters to face.

“Good morning!” She called out, but it was directed specifically to one individual and she made a beeline right for their desk that they were thankfully positioned at.

“Oh, hi, Dae – DI Targaryen.” Gendry said in mild confusion, as Daenerys loomed over him. She smiled and placed one of her coffees down in front of him.

“I assume you drink coffee?”

“Uhm… yeah,” He looked between the coffee and Daenerys before sitting a little more forward in his chair. “I kind of didn’t think you’d be coming into today.”

She did her best to ignore that sentence and the fact that he said it in hushed tones meant that she could half-pretend she never heard him say it.

“Yesterday I met the people who stole Margaery’s phone and they confirmed it was under Joffrey’s orders and Joffrey should have that phone.” Gendry sat even more forward in his chair and smiled, but Daenerys made sure she was speaking in the most tentative of ways.

“Well, that’s great, isn’t it?”

Daenerys inhaled and gave a firm nod.

“Excellent.” She leaned in closer, so she could speak in the same hushed tones he had done earlier. “I met them with Jon and we kind of promised it wouldn’t ever come back to the police, so we can’t really do much with it.”

She leaned back and took a sip of her coffee as she watched Gendry splutter out his own coffee. He took a violent wipe at his mouth with the back of his hand before speaking up.

“You went with Jon?” His voice was a harsh whisper. “You’ve been working with Jon?”

She winced. She hadn’t really thought through how bad that part of her favour was going to be.

“It was just a tip he gave. I couldn’t just let it go.”

“You didn’t have to go with him. Are we even allowed to work with private detectives?”

Daenerys shrugged.

“He knew them and I couldn’t just turn up by myself. It was just one tip.”

“But now it means nothing then? You can’t do anything with that if they don’t want it coming back to us.”

“Unless…” She started in a quizzical manner and Gendry looked curious once more.

“Yeah?”

“Unless, of course, we say you chased the lead with me and then we get evidence to prove Joffrey knew the guy who stole the phone, because the guy, Spud, says he went to school with Joffrey.”

Gendry was quiet for a moment and the only sound that could be heard was the long exhale he was letting out.

“That sounds… risky? For a bit of evidence?”

Daenerys nodded slowly as if in complete agreement with him, before giving a tiny shrug.

“Someone’s life is at stake and looking at where we are right now, there’s a very good chance Joffrey did it or knows something about it that he’s not telling us. We need to get a warrant to search his house and find this phone.”

Gendry looked defeated in what Daenerys was saying and she knew she had him on her team.

“If you agree to this then I’m going to need to find information on this Spud guy, so if you can locate Joffrey’s school records then we can find a yearbook or something. Or maybe they’re Facebook friends? I can do a Facebook search.”

“Okay… I guess I’m agreeing to this then?”

“You are? That’s great.”

Gendry looked overwhelmed, but he turned to his desk muttering that he was going to look up Joffrey’s school information.

She walked off to her own temporary desk and opened up Facebook to scour for potential photos of this Spud guy, but when she got there, she knew there was something she needed to do first. It might not have been the most important thing for the case right now, but it was for her own peace of mind. She picked up her phone and dialled a number she hadn’t called in a long time.

She had to get the number off their system, as it wasn’t one she had the privilege of knowing anymore.

“Hi Sansa, it’s Daenerys.” She greeted in soft tones when the phone was answered.

“Oh, hi Daenerys.” Her voice sounded crackly, as if she had been crying prior to the call.

“I hope I haven’t woken you up…”

“No, no, not at all.” Her voice suddenly sounded incredibly alert.

Daenerys smiled despite the fact Sansa would be unable to see that.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing.” There was a pause and a rustle on the other end. Perhaps Sansa was switching positions to talk further.

“I mean… I’m okay. I thought you might be calling with some news.” Daenerys chewed on her bottom lip. She did have news, but that would definitely be breaking a lot of protocols to go into the fine details of that.

“I don’t have news yet, but the information you provided is proving to be really helpful.”

“Okay…”

Daenerys gave an internal sigh and decided there wasn’t really much else she could say.

“I just wanted to see that you were okay. Try and keep yourself occupied. I know that’s easier said than done, but…”

“No,” Sansa said with a small and delicate sigh. “But I know what you mean and I’ll try.”

“Okay, I’ll speak to you soon.”

“Bye.”

Daenerys hung up the phone and kept the tip of it to her mouth as she mulled over things. If she didn’t need more of a motive to solve this case, then Sansa being connected to it was an extra push for her. And she knew it would be the same for Jon.

Last night had confirmed to Daenerys that she was living some sort of fantasy when it came to Jon. Yes, he had taken her home and spent the night lying next to her, but she had managed to get him to build a wall when she left him and nothing she could do would bring that down.

All she could do was hope that she would earn forgiveness from him when this was all done, but right now this case was bigger than the past ten years of their lives.

 

* * *

 

“Run a search on this name. He must have a record.” Daenerys stated, handing Gendry over the piece of paper. “Try it without the ‘e’ on the end if that doesn’t work. Little shitheads on Facebook put whatever they want.”

Surprisingly though it seemed like he had put his name on there correctly, as his face appeared on the screen. He did have a record.

“He’s been taken in for… possession before.” Daenerys nodded, but Gendry was still reading through the information.

“Okay, print off all of this. We need to get this to DCI Tarth if we want a warrant granted today.” Gendry nodded and she stood up straight, moving back over to her desk to get the only slightly fabricated report she had written up about the events from yesterday.

“DI Targaryen,” She turned her head in the direction of the voice, but continued power walking to her desk. It was DI Greyjoy, who she had barely interacted with in the last day or so, and she looked so serious that Daenerys stopped right in her tracks. “We need to go.”

“Where? What’s happened?”

DI Greyjoy licked her bottom lips and shifted her balance.

“A call’s come through – a body’s been found. Flowers were on the victim.”

Daenerys’s eyes widened and she felt completely frozen. It normally wouldn’t matter until they were at the scene, but she needed to ask just one question before they left.

“Is it Margaery?”

DI Greyjoy at first nodded, but then she shook her head.

“We don’t know. Come on, get DS Waters too.”

 

* * *

 

They showed their identification before being granted access to the crime scene and then they all silently put on their disposable gloves and shoe protectors as they listened to the summary of what had been found from the lead officer.

“Young female, thought to be the resident of the flat, Bella Holland. Looks like forced entry to the flat. Found naked with visible strangulation marks. Interestingly there were flowers over her body -,”

“Buttercups.” Daenerys breathed with wide eyes.

“Yes… how did-,”

“It was just a good guess.” She swallowed hard and nodded, as if they were waiting for her in order to enter.

They entered the room where she lay. There were other people doing different tasks and lights flashed as photos were taken of the body.

Being in the Major Crime team, she had seen more than her fair share of dead bodies. She thought she was intolerant to queasiness over seeing them. Nothing could ever beat the first dead body she saw and that was right here, in Manchester. All of a sudden she felt sick.

Looking at the body, she realized she might have to visit the body again in the morgue and that brought her back to being the twenty year old girl who looked upon her dead friend. She would be in the exact same place again.

Manchester was full of ghosts for Daenerys. Some were still living, but one was dead.

“We need an autopsy and reports as soon as possible on this.” She stated, turning around and walking right back out the door. She felt her phone vibrate in her coat pocket.

“DI Targaryen!” She heard the snap from DI Greyjoy, but she couldn’t turn back around. She couldn’t come up with an excuse without losing the strong pretense of coldness.

She threw the shoe protectors off once she got outside and took deep, deep breaths, as her eyes stung with pain of things she had seen once upon a time ago.

Taking one deep inhale to hide the shudders that took over her body, she called back Jon, because of course; _of course_ it had to be him calling her now. Who else ever called her now?

“We need to set some fucking boundaries here and -,”

“We’ve found a body.”

Her voice was strained, but it still thankfully was cold enough that it could be mistaken for professionalism, not like she was on the verge of a breakdown.

“What? Not Margaery?”

He clearly had the same thought process as her when she found out there was a body. There was a clear panic in his voice and she couldn’t blame him for that sheer panic – it was for Sansa.

“No. Not Margaery.”

“But part of the case?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t keep it in much longer. Her voice was becoming more and more delicate as she went on. “I really should go.”

“Dany, wait, are you -,”

She hung up the phone and stared out across the road at the police cars, unable to really think of the case right now. All she could think of was her past as if it was a murder that needed solving.

_May 2 nd, 2010_

Dany stared at the ceiling, gripping tighter to the duvet beneath her as her breath remained slow and steady. She hadn’t cried since she saw her lifeless body, since she had identified it was _her_ lifeless body. No tears came even when she was at the funeral – everything was just numb. Maybe if she just cried then some sort of release would leave her, but try as she might to think of memories with her and all the sadness that should be consuming her, no tears came.

She scrunched her eyes tightly as a final physical attempt to release some pent up emotions, so she could start to cope and move on.

A soft knock at the door caused her to open her eyes and sit up quickly as if she hadn’t spent an hour already in there staring at the ceiling. The door opened up almost instantly even though she didn’t give a response.

A long and heavy sigh left her as she saw Jon stood there. He gave a sigh as well, but it sounded like it was relief of some sort. He rested his head against the door.

“Missy told me you would be in here if you weren’t in your room.”

She knew how pathetic she currently looked sitting on her dead friend’s bed. She probably looked an absolutely mess as well from lack of sleep and hair toppled on her head with tangled bits hanging dead around her face, but Jon was staring at her like she wasn’t a mess.

“I’m just…”

She didn’t have a way to finish that sentence, so she simply trailed off and stared down at her hands. The floor vibrated as Jon stepped in cautiously. He probably didn’t find it as normal as Dany did to be in here.

“I need to start packing things up to send to her family. They gave me some money when they were here – Dubai is a long way to send things really.” She spoke with fake normality in her voice, as she was distancing herself as far away as Dubai to the situation.

“Do you really think you should be doing that? Maybe Irri or someone who wasn’t…” She didn’t have to be looking at him to know that he was wincing whilst he spoke.

“How’s Sam?” She finally looked up then. She didn’t have much room for any other feelings, but she did have somewhat pity for Jon having to deal with both her and Sam right now in their current states.

“Uhh… Well -,”

“I’m seeing him tomorrow.”

Jon timidly took a seat next to her. His hand crept over hers and she shuddered before pulling it away from him. She wanted to take her reaction back immediately, but she couldn’t make herself touch him right then.

“He told me. I think it’s good for you to both talk about Doreah, you both loved her.”

Dany nodded slowly.

“In different ways.”

She had successfully set them up together and she had never thought the phrase ‘lucky in love’ suited two people as perfectly as it did for them. Sam always said he couldn’t believe his luck to have one of the most beautiful girls be with him and Doreah had never had a guy treat her with kindness, she was always unlucky that way.

Dany thought these three couples (her and Jon, Missy and Grey then Sam and Doreah) would all get married and be the bridesmaids and groomsmen at all the weddings, but now that would never happen. Something was cracking down the surface of her perfect story and it would just continue to crack and crack until there was nothing left but shards of glass on the floor.

“I’ve been thinking, Dany,” Jon started off and she closed her eyes, not wanting to hear what he had thinking about right then. “Maybe… maybe we move in together for this next year. I thought it might be weird for you to live with friends when…”

He trailed off and Dany knew it was hard for him to speak about it. She could appreciate that he was thinking of her and that was nice, but that’s as far as she could go with it right then.

“Okay.”

Jon exhaled, as if he had been dreading her answer.

“And then after we finish our last year of uni, we can move away.”

Dany opened her eyes and turned to him with a real emotional response for the first time in a while.

“ _Really_?”

She felt her eyes finally water, but out of sheer relief. She hadn’t realized how badly she needed to leave Manchester before he said that. She couldn’t live here now in the place where one of her best friends had been murdered. Her heart beat wildly and she thought of her freedom away from this place that would now just remind her of her friend’s murder.

He simply nodded and put an arm around her shoulders that she welcomed this time instead of pushing away.

She fell into Jon’s arms and rested her head against his chest. They stayed like that for some time with Dany simply listening to Jon’s chest heaving and sighing. When she pulled away, she exhaled deeply and pulled his hands onto his lap. She was ready to announce the firm decision that had otherwise before recent events been an idea that she flopped between.

“I’m going to be a police officer.”

* * *

 

_Present Day_

It wasn’t a normal thing for Daenerys to sit on the grass. It was too much of a risk that her clothes would be stained post-sitting; however she now sat with her knees clutched to her chest in front of the grave of Doreah Moore. She was surprised she had found it so easily considering it had been many years since she had last been here.

After what happened today, it felt like a natural need for her to come here. She had perhaps been sat there a good thirty minutes already as she felt her bum become numb from staying in the same position for so long.

She had just been going over the case, Doreah and then all the time that had passed since Doreah. She had faced Jon head-on when she got here, but facing this was almost harder in a way. She thought about Jon a lot and tortured herself over whether it was the right decision or not all those years back, but with Doreah she didn’t think about it, she just threw herself into any case in an attempt to solve it and make some sort of amends for the guilt she felt over not being able to do anything for her friend. For not being on her run with her that evening, for being with Jon instead of attempting to get fit like she had promised she would do with her.

Instead Doreah went out for that run by herself in the nearby forest and never came back.

She felt the movement of someone behind her just at her memories replayed that night again. She turned her head and was mildly shocked to see Jon stood just behind her.

“What are you doing here?”

She hadn’t told anyone that she would be coming here. She _wouldn’t_ have told anyone where she was going.

“Uh… I had a feeling you might be here.”

It was remarkable to think that someone could still know someone after so much time had passed. Sure, he might not know the exact wine she drank nowadays, but he knew how she would feel after this.

There is no other place she could have been.

Jon lowered himself to sit right next to her in the grass, as Daenerys wondered what there was to say now.

“Her family moved back to London a few years back.”

She didn’t know if he physically reacted to her saying that, as she still stared at Doreah’s name on the grave.

“They usually come up for her birthday. They sometimes see Sam.”

Of course he knew that. He seemed to know just as much about the people in her life as she did, yet she knew nothing about what was going on with his family and friends. She had isolated herself from everyone it seemed when she left, whereas he still opened himself up to people.  

“You never asked me why I wanted to be a police officer.” She didn’t know why she had to say that. Most probably because she had been thinking about why she had become one and it was true, Jon never asked her directly why she wanted to do it.

“I always had an idea. You used to beat yourself up over the fact that you couldn’t have done something to save her and get closure by finding out who did it to her. It really doesn’t surprise me that you’re now a murder detective.”

“I could have done something this time though.” She bit down on her tongue after she said that out of frustration. If she had stuck around long enough to overcome the queasiness at seeing the body then she would have had one emotion pouring out of her as she stared at the buttercup girl – guilt. A whole fucking wave of it.

“You don’t know that for sure.” Jon replied too quickly, as if he was on autopilot to reassure her. “And you still can – Margaery might still be alive.”

“I don’t know the likelihood of that.” A false laugh left her, as if mocking herself.

A silence brewed between them, as she shuffled on her numb bum to get some feeling back. He broke it first.

“You never asked me either why I’m a private investigator now.”

It was like he was trying to point out the fact that she never asked him things, like he didn’t ask things about her, but he always had a right answer. She didn’t have an answer for that. She didn’t really _know_ why he was a PI.

“No… I didn’t.” She admitted.

“I thought I would be able to make a difference as well, like you thought you could and you’re probably doing a better job of it. I spent a lot of time in the start trying to do something with Doreah’s case, but I had to come to the conclusion that it was just random, you know, there were no links, no leads – nothing.”

The words shot out into the air. The words shot into the shell that surrounded Daenerys.

She turned to look at him finally and although she was ready to speak when she opened her mouth hot air left it. Her mouth remained open like she was dumb and she felt completely fucking dumb. She never expected that from him.

“You did?”

“She was my friend too. It affected me too, but it was my girlfriend’s best friend and my best friend’s girlfriend – it was just more important I was there for you. I thought this could’ve been my way to look at it.”

Dany had never even thought about it in that way. She had been so in her own grief that she hadn’t considered that she was Jon’s friend too.

The words stayed trapped in her throat, but she wanted to say that it made sense now that Jon knew exactly where her grave was after all this time – he still came here too.

“So I get what you’re doing. I get why it’s so hard for you to be here and I think I get… you know, in the end why...”

Her eyes blinked rapidly. She wanted him to say it. She wanted them to talk about it and be over it, but she couldn’t be the one to do it. She realized she wasn’t strong enough for that.

“You were trying to tell me something on the phone.” Instead she went about it another way in order to get him to tell her how he felt, so she could just accept that there was no chance for them anymore.

“There’s probably a lot we’ve been trying to tell each other.”

“Like?”

“It seems like impossibly bad timing for us to do that now.”

He was right.

Either they talked about it all now and risked whatever the outcome brought them or they focused on the case and then they went their separate ways.

“I know… I know there’s things you might still be angry with me about and I have things I want to say as well, but maybe for now, we just focus on all this and leave it.”

“Yeah… I want to just get this sorted, so maybe you’re right.”

She knew that after this was all over then she would probably just leave before they spoke about it all and maybe he knew that as well. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it either. Maybe time had been enough closure for him.

 _Time_.

“We should go now.”

She hardly noticed his voice speaking out then, she was back to staring at Doreah’s grave.

“It just makes me think that when you die you’re not losing out on people or breathing and experiencing everything, you’ve lost all those things, but life gives you one important gift. Time is a privilege.”

She took her time speaking; in fact she had no choice but to take her time. Words and thoughts kept getting stuck within her, but she hoped Jon had the patience to stick with her.

“When you die, you run out of time. Time pressures you a lot, like if I could’ve solved this faster I could have saved someone and -,”

“You don’t know if that was possible.” He flipped the switch back to the autopilot response of it wasn’t her fault, but she kept on.

“But time can be kind. Time heals things if you’re patient with it and… when you make a mistake, time can make you realise how wrong you were and maybe… maybe you can still get a second chance.”

Only a little while ago she was ready to accept that it was over between them and she had been living in a fucked up fantasy, but then if time had provided him with closure, it had provided her with constant rolling footage of how things could have been if she had stayed, if he hadn’t –

The hope that radiated in her voice made her want to scream, because it was a lost cause. It was surely more hopeless than the whole flowers case, but then… then he said the three most hopeful words in the dictionary.

“Maybe it can.”

Jon stood up and his hand was held out right in front of her face to help her stand. She put her small hand in his and he pulled her up to feet. She gave him a small smile as a silent way to say thank you, but his eyes were intensely watching her and she was worried she had done something wrong when it felt like they were making such progress.

“What?” She asked in a tiny voice, not sure what it could be that she had done now.

No answer came. Instead he let go of her hand and cupped her face in his rough hands, pulling her face to meet his. This kiss wasn’t like the last time; it wasn’t full of the desperation and confusion. This time it felt sweet and tender, like it was something he wanted to do, not _needed_ to do in the moment. She lapped up the kiss, stroking the space between his lips and ear with a finger as he calmed her with his perfect lips.

Oh, how she loved kissing him. She had desperate kissing, now sad kissing… she wanted a happy, perfect kiss, but she could have any sort of kiss with him and the end result would be her happiness.

He pulled away and she waited to see the regret in his face to make her feel guilty, but he simply tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and held one hand out for her to take. Cautiously she held out one finger that laced around two of his fingers, holding onto him in the most delicate of ways out of fear he would pull away.

“I can take you back to the station.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd say this is a kind of halfway point to the fic although not necessarily 10 chapters left - might be less, might be more. 
> 
> we've only got a few chapters of flashbacks left though before their past has been told and then we're left with present jon and dany solving crime and looking sexi. 
> 
> thanks for sticking with this fic and hope you're still enjoying it xoxo


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